


Suspended In Dusk

by Seygen_Belial



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27527851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seygen_Belial/pseuds/Seygen_Belial
Summary: Bella jumps off the cliff in La Push, but she never hits the water. Now, in a desperate race against an enemy that can't be captured, Bella learns that even the invincible have their vulnerabilities, and that the wicked will always go straight for the throat... Canon, AU, NM. Heavy Angst, Violence, HEA but not without a price! Top Ten Completed Fic of November 2020
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan
Kudos: 20





	1. Scream With Me

_You wanted me to be human, I reminded him. Well, watch me._

_“Please. For me.”_

_But you won’t stay with me any other way._

_“Please.” It was just a whisper in the blowing rain that tossed my hair and drenched my clothes—making_

_Me as wet as if this were my second jump of the day._

_I rolled up onto the balls of my feet._

_“No, Bella!” He was angry now, and the anger was so lovely._

_I smiled and raised my arms straight out, as if I were going to dive, lifting my face into the rain. But it was_

_Too ingrained from years of swimming at the public pool—feet first, first time. I leaned forward, crouching_

_To get more spring…_

_And I flung myself off the cliff._

But I never hit the water. 

Instead, something slammed into my back, milliseconds before I reached the water. Surely it was a boulder, a dump truck, something impossibly hard, as hard as the jagged rocks that formed the cliff face that raced upward as I fell. 

I was literally, unconscious before I knew what hit me. 

* * *

“Ohhhh no, no, no. Wakeup, little bitch. I want you nice and conscious for this.” 

A palm-shaped marble slab crashed into the side of my face. Something cracked audibly in my jaw. The pain was blinding, disorienting. My knocked loose teeth moved with my breaths. 

Flat on my back, I opened my eyes, seeing stars, and look up into Victoria’s face, her hair like a fire. Like a terrifying flashback, like the nightmares that woke me screaming most nights, I realized she was holding a camcorder. My heart pounded hard in my chest, every beat throbbing in the side of my face. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. 

“ _Don’t move. Do as she says.”_

Of course. In my most terrifying moments, I heard his voice. Of course, I’d hear it now. Even now it comforted me. It gave me the strength to assess my surroundings. 

A cave? Was this a cave? I heard waves crashing near, behind my head. The ground was soaked, frigid, slippery stone. It was dark, the only illumination coming from the small and craggy opening fifty feet away. Beyond the opening was nothing but sea. 

Victoria stepped over my body, one foot on each side of my hips, and looked directly down at me through the camera. 

“I thought, in James’ memory, we could continue the film he started for Edward. Except, I am NOT as kind as James was. You’ll beg me for death in the next few hours. 

Now see, the trick is, we can’t let you _bleed._ No, we’re not going to shorten this. Even your bruises smell delectable.” 

My smell. Always my smell. I was listening to my eulogy. 

She knelt down, straddling my waist, leaned over and traced my jugular with her cold tongue, her cool breath starkly apparent on the hot, swollen skin over my shattered jaw. Even through the excruciating throb and terror, her cool vampire scent brought back memories of the Cullens. The camera rolled, close, right in my face. I closed my eyes against it. 

“Wouldn’t want to lose control of myself too early...” she whispered into my ear. 

Her knees slowly began to squeeze my hips together. Tighter and tighter, steadily and slowly. The screaming came without control. I felt my hip bones shatter, and still she pressed. My pelvis, pulverized. 

“A little internal bleeding never hurt anyone though. Anyone who wasn’t human, of course.” 

The pain could not be adequately translated through words or rational language. Time didn’t matter because all of it was an eternity. I lost control of my bladder. 

She moved down my legs on her hands and knees, my body underneath her, camera in one hand. She stood on her knees and crushed my femur. She pushed my knee caps nearly to the backs of my knees, slowly as to not break my skin. She sank her fingers into my legs, smashing bone, like clay in her hands. My screams echoed off the unfeeling granite walls. 

My mind went, at some point, I think. If the sweet black release of lost consciousness began to creep in, she pulled me out of it with violent shakes. Still, the camera rolled. 

I can’t say how much time had passed. Victoria was torturing me. Some part of my mind knew this to be a fact. Holding my breath, I wished for death. The begging she wanted never came. Begging would entail somewhat rational thought. Nothing was real but pain now. 

The idea came to me like an oasis in the endless desert of Hell. _Blood. I needed to bleed. If I could bleed, she would kill me._ I would welcome anything that would put this terrible pain to an end. 

With every ounce of energy my broken body had left, I beat my head into the granite underneath it. Two, hard smacks and I felt the skin split and the blood spill. Victoria moaned as though touched by a lover. 

“Damn it…” she hissed, breathing heavily through her nose. She set the camera down next to us. She straddled my ankles, on her knees, almost tenderly, she reached, and her fingers found their way to the back of my skull and into the wound. She brought her blood sodden fingers to her face, smelling deeply, and licked the blood from her fingertips. 

“Oh my God. How could anyone resist that... “ 

Her teeth were in my thigh before I realized it worked. _She's going to kill me!_ It would all be over soon. I won. I was getting out of this never-ending pain. Victoria moaned as she drained me. Another few seconds, just a few more eternities, and it would all be over. Darkness and absolute horror imprisoned me. Now the world was gone; I was just one. 

I felt, at that moment, like I had always known what my last thoughts would be. What they would always be, what they had been since the second I laid eyes on him. 

Edward’s voice no longer spoke; it stood in the corner and screamed with me. 


	2. Your Tears Don't Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stephenie Meyers toys, just messin' around.

I was wrenched from the darkness by the dump truck hitting me again, only this time from the side. My entire side caved in. Blood sputtered from my lips and blocked my airway. I was suffocating. Pain, and now suffocation. Where was death? People fight so hard to ward it off, but when you wish for it, it never seems to come. 

I was vaguely aware that Victoria was no longer in my field of vision, and I was moving. Green, wet, dirt, cough, choke, blood, agony. Stone… arms? 

And… burning? My thigh, my thigh was on fire. It was burning, surely, I was on fire. Napalm, melting, white-hot, charred, my thigh seared. Somehow, it overshadowed the pain from my broken body. Something was burning me. Again... Just like with James, but this time, in my thigh. 

Victoria had bitten me, and I had lived. I was in stone arms, a vampire’s arms, running. Whoever was carrying me was not sucking the venom out like before. I knew what this meant; I was changing. And it was too late to turn back and embrace the sweet death that Victoria had tried to bring me. My bones crushing under her fingers were nothing. The blows to my face, a feather pillow. The screaming came involuntarily. I needed to scream. Screaming was how I was begging for them to kill me. 

All I wanted was to die. To never have been born. The whole of my existence did not outweigh this pain. Wasn't worth living through it for one more heartbeat.   
  
_Let me die, let me die, let me die._   
  
And, for a never-ending expanse, that was all there was. Just the fiery torture, and my shrieks, pleading for death to come. Nothing else, not even time. So that made it infinite, with no beginning and no end. One infinite moment of pain.

The crash of a slamming door. Soft sheets underneath me. A pixie-like voice screaming. 

“Carlisle!! I have her, and she’s been bitten! There’s so much blood, I don’t know if she’s burning or dying!! I don’t know what to do, I can’t stop her screaming!! Yes, her heart is pounding out of her chest!! My God Carlisle, her legs!!! They’re completely crushed! Call me the second you land!!”

Somehow, through the blood filling my throat, and my choked screams I managed to bellow “ _ BURNING!” _

“Oh! Oh God, Bella, I am so sorry, I know it hurts. I’m here, I’m here I’m not going anywhere I promise. Carlisle is coming as fast as the plane will carry him.  _ GOD DAMN YOU EDWARD!” _

My heart still cringed to hear his name, even in my pit of agony. I felt Alice, sweet Alice, laying cold cloths on my skin, to no avail. They did nothing to stop the burning. Her voice and presence alone were keeping me sane.

* * *

Eventually, my screams gave way and melted in rhythmic moans. Whatever it was inside me that was bleeding had stopped, and I no longer choked with throatfuls of blood. Suddenly, the crunching of the dried blood in my hair seemed more audible. I could hear birds in the trees outside. I could hear a river… Was… was I at the Cullens’??

Yes, somehow, Alice got to me inside of the wet, stone torture chamber. I was at the Cullens ’ empty house,  my moans and her voice echoed  off the empty walls,  and Alice was here with me. Was Victoria dead? Where were the other Cullens? Where was… Edward? _ Where was that horrible camcorder _ ?? 

She whispered sweet words of comfort me to, that did little to comfort, but nonetheless, I clung to Alice’s voice. It was the only thing that was bearable. I felt her dress me, and wash me, all the while my dry throat wracked with painful moans. I felt her pull a brush through my snarled hair. 

“She’s stopped bleeding now, it’s safe. I’ve burned her clothes. I love you. Carlisle is on his way.” The click of a flip phone folding.

She must be speaking to Jasper.  Jasper, and Alice, and Carlisle. They were all still real. 

I became aware of time. After 24,335 seconds, I heard Carlisle’s smooth voice. Some idiotically hopeful part of me wished that somehow his presence would bring relief from this torment, some kind of pain medicine, a hammer to knock me out, chloroform, anything. But I knew there was no relief. Relief would only come once I opened my eyes into immortality. And though I had craved immortality, it was Victoria’s bite that was turning me, and I would forever know the reek of her hate was in my veins. It was never supposed to be Victoria. It should have been… him. It always should have been him. 

I felt Carlisle’s cool fingers taking my vitals. I felt a blood pressure cuff.

“Bella, your change is happening rapidly, and you’re doing wonderfully.”

“She’s getting clearer by the minute. She’s going to be stunning.” Alice  sounded fair more cheerful than the situation warranted.

“She’s still terrified; I can feel it in waves. Are you sure she can hear us?” Jasper’s voice whispered from somewhere on the other side of the room. “Does she know what’s happening?”

How could I not know? I had felt the kiss of this fire before.

“Carlisle, we have to call Edward,” Alice interrupted. “He’d want to be here.”

My heart pounded even harder. 

“Hear that?” Carlisle noted the change in my  heart's rhythm. “Yes, she can hear us.”

Though I knew my love was painfully unrequited, just the sound of his voice, real and pure, I needed it. I needed to remember why I was involved in this world of agony. I needed to remember why the fires of hell were licking every inch of my broken body. Would he come? Why? I could hear every dial tone as the numbers were pressed. I heard a ring through the receiver as though it were right next to my ear. And then I heard his beautiful voice come through the phone in Alice’s hand.

“Alice?” 

“Edward, you need to get to Forks, NOW. Victoria got to Bella. No, she’s changing, can’t you hear her moans??”

I was still moaning? Oh, that’s right. It came as involuntarily as breathing. I had to stop; I didn’t want him to hear me. I clenched my jaw together and sucked gulps of air through my teeth, noticing they were no longer loose. I couldn’t let him hear me. I couldn’t let him act out of guilt.

“Bella… he’s coming to you. He’ll  here  before dawn breaks.”

Adding layers to my exquisite pain, the hole in my chest once again gaped. My moans began again, and a different kind of tears now crashed around me. 


	3. Before I Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.**

“ Alice, what do you see?”

“I don’t know yet Carlisle… and I can’t see Victoria anymore. It’s like I have blind spots. Sometimes she’s there, sometimes she’s not. It was only by chance that I got to Bella in time. If I hadn’t seen her decide to jump… It’s like Victoria doesn’t even make decisions. Everything she does is instinct, spur of the moment. I just… I can’t see her, and I don’t know  _ why! _ ” 

A loud and  heavy crack  reverberated through the room. I felt my chest expand. 

“Her ribs are healing…  he r bruises are all but gone. It’s happening quickly. The amount of venom must have been extraordinary. I can’t imagine her pain. ”

“The chest injury may have came from me, Carlisle. I hit her pretty hard when I knocked Victoria off of her, that’s when she started coughing up blood. God, I could’ve accidentally killed her myself.” Alice’s voice, obstructed with guilt explained. “And I’m so sorry, all I was focused on was getting Bella out of there. She’s still out there Carlisle. Bella, I am so sorry.”

_ Oh, GOD!  _ I realized that I had assumed Jasper had gotten Victoria. She was still out there, and now enraged.  _ Charlie! _ Someone had to get to Charlie, and someone had to warn Jacob! Hours had passed, I counted every second, it must be the middle of the night by now,  surely, they were looking for me. They must think Victoria had gotten to me. They must think I’m dead. 

I tried to form the word  _ “Charlie!!!” _ on my lips, but the second my teeth unclenched, the shrieks erupted again. Surely the Wolves were protecting him still? Was I being searched for? Someone had to tell Jacob I’m alive.  _ I have to get to Jacob! _

I desperately tried to push my body off the pyre of a bed, screaming all while. It was of no use. I would be a new creature before I could stand. I managed to fall onto the hard floor. I noticed the floor was not smooth, I could feel every dip, every dimple in the hardwood. I could smell the decay in the wood, the varnish, the polish that had cleaned it. Though I hit the floor hard on my chest, my ability to draw a breath wasn’t affected . 

My 3 caregivers, before these thoughts were complete, had lifted my body back onto the bed at inhuman speed, but it didn’t feel extraordinarily fast. The speed was bizarre but felt right. Their hands felt scalding. I clenched my teeth again, and held my screams down to moans, each inhalation sand paper on the melted flesh of my throat. 

Just like before, when the hole had been punched through my chest, time passes. Instead of like the pulse of blood behind a bruise, the tick of each second seared like the hottest blue flame, doused in gasoline. My mind developed a different capacity for feeling. No longer did time pass erratically, no longer did I have blessed lurches that would’ve provide infinitesimal relief. I felt, and counted every microsecond. I heard every breath from the 3 vampires around me. I heard every heartbeat, strong, alive, thick, in my chest. I felt my bones fusing back together. I could feel my hips reforming under the clothes Alice had dressed me in. 

And I felt the hell fires getting impossibly  hotter , seeming to focus in my chest. Was it because my change was nearing completion?  Or, was it  my knowledge that he would be here soon? 

My moans melded into desiccated  sobs. 

* * *

** JPOV **

_ WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE?!?! _

I followed her tire tracks to the cliffs. She had been here, I could smell it, and the tracks were fresh. God, she wasn’t so stupid, was she??  Surely, she didn’t jump herself. We had all worried about her mental state since Cullen had left, but she wasn’t REALLY suicidal, was she? I read her tracks in the path that ledge to the highest ledge. Each footstep that had settled in the dirt made my heart sink lower. Plain as day, I could see her steps. She had hesitated. 

But she had jumped.

I  dived to wards the brin k as if my motion could still save her. I peered over the edge, down into the waters , churning with the incoming storm  and saw nothing living, only sea and stone. Stone that would crush her frail bones into powder. I fought against the images of Bella, twisted, having broken herself against the stones. Wind whipped around me and thunder rolled through the lacerated sky, but my terror locked  me  in clutch, pushed me in place. I held my breath, listened. Nothing but wind and beating waves.  A wail built inside my chest. I inhaled gulps of sea air, hyperventilating, even in the open, claustrophobic, closing in. With my gasps came a scent…

A fucking vampire. 

I sucked more air through my nostrils. Not just one vampire stink. Two. 

_ “GOD DAMN IT! NO!” _

I don’t even remember phasing. In an instant, I was on four legs in a shower of torn  shorts. The mental connection to the pack activated instantly, and the few members  not  tending to the needs of Harry Clearwater’s family clearly heard the insane distress  in my thoughts. A cacophony of responses bounced in my head.

_ A fucking vampire has Bella!! _

_ The redhead? _

_ I DON’T KNOW, WE JUST HAVE TO FIND HER! _

_ Should someone tell Charlie? _

_ For the love of God, NO. Someone tell him she’s at my house or something, just lie! We have to find her! _

Every pack member not with the  Clearwaters phased and joined my search within minutes. We combed for hours, along the beaches and cliffs, through the dense forests. The storm raged and drenched my fur, making it heavy and caked it in mud. The red head’s scent disappeared into the water, we hadn’t found a trail on the second stench, and Bella’s scent disappeared at the cliff’s edge. The second was not a smell I clearly recognized. Selfishly, through my panic, I was relieved it wasn’t  _ the _ bloodsucker’s stink. I prayed he’d keep his promise to stay away. 

But if it wasn’t his stink … W ho ’s could it be? There were others in his coven. Had they come back? My heart thudded under my fur. We had searched everywhere, except the Cullen’s old place. If one of the Cullens had come into La Push, the treaty was breached. This would be my  justification to enter their territory, to investigate the supposedly empty mansion in the woods. A vampire, particularly multiple, in La Push had to lead back to the Cullens. Everything  horrific always seems to lead back to the Cullens. My hatred seared, side by side with my fear. 

I was going to the Cullen mansion. If I found Bella there, my end would justify my means. All the pack could do was delay me. If it turned up an empty lead, I didn’t care. I  _ HAD _ to find Bella. I had no time to lose, and couldn’t be caught up in all these battles. The howling protests of my pack mates roared through my skull; I couldn’t think. 

_ Jacob, what?! You can’t go on their turf! _

_ We can’t follow you to help Jake! _

_ Someone  _ _ get _ _ Sam, NOW! _

_ He’s with the Clearwaters! _

_ Get Sam NOW, before he phases back! _

I phased back to human, bringing instant silence before the  timber of the A lpha could order me otherwise. I  dawned the tattered remains of my shredded clothing and  r an through the forest towards the direction of the Cullen’s. 


	4. For All The Things I Didn't Do For You

“Carlisle! Something’s happening!”

Alice’s shriek reverberated through the empty room,  and the enormous glass panels rattled in their panes. 

Waves of calm crashed over the room, broiling in the flames that ate at what must be my blackened skin, providing me no solace. In three hundred  fifty-seven one-hundredths of a second, Carlisle’s fingertips pressed against my wrists checking my vitals. 

My heart pounded harder in my chest, and the heat seemed to be retreating from my fingertips. I could hear  _ everything. _ My wailing moans had finally stopped. The inferno raged, and I had learned, my screams did no good. My eyes clenched shut against the heat. 

“Alice, this is normal, what?” Carlisle asked bewildered.

“I… I don’t know, Bella, she just blurred right out of my field of vision! I… I… can’t see her future… At all! It’s the same way Victoria disappears, she’s just… she’s just GONE! I— ,” But Alice’s explanation was cut short. 

Somewhere in the forest, heavy footsteps fell, fast, coming closer with every step. 

“Oh god, Edward, finally.” Carlisle  breathed, relieved. “He must be running.”

“Carlisle… I— I don’t think it’s Edward. Whoever it is, I can’t see them!” 

I heard Jasper move through the air, heard him take a defensive crouch. A low growl emanated from his chest. The three vampires moved to the glass wall. Peering into the darkness, bright as day to their eyes, they all remained silent. 

Carlisle uttered a sharp gasp.

“On it.” and I could hear Jasper’s swift motion towards the exit, and the force of Carlisle’s hand on his shoulder stopping him.

“No! Jasper! Attacking will only make it worse.” 

My heart beat furiously, speeding up, the heat super-concentrated in  its core, my palms and forearms blissfully cool. The room was silent besides the jack-hammering of my heart. They all stopped breathing for a second in response.

“It’ll all be over soon…” I never thought I’d hear Carlisle’s voice shake. 

The footsteps stopped near the river’s edge, at the border of the forest.

* * *

** EPOV **

“No, that’s unacceptable, I need a straight flight to Seattle, no stops. Don’t tell me it’s impossible , cost is no object.”

“I’m sorry sir, the flight you’re asking for just doesn’t exist. I have a flight stopping in Miami and Houston. It’s a 24-hour flight, but it boards in three hours.”

“Portland?”

I could hear her fingers move across the keys of her computer.

“I’m sorry sir, nothing direct.”

“To LAX then.” I could drive from there.

“I’m sorry sir, but an international flight with no stops is just not immediately available. The shortest flight I have is the one I spoke of, leaving out of GRU with layovers at MIA and IAH.”

“Damn it! Book it, immediately. First-class.”

Three hours until I board. Twenty-four hours in airports and planes. Twenty-seven hours before I’d be there to burn with my love, my life. No private jets were available on such short notice. I could run to Forks faster than these planes would get me there. I was desperate.

And what would I see when I got there? The weight of my mistake threatened to crush me. What had I done? 

I hoped she hated me. I wanted her to hate me, for all the things I couldn’t do for her. I tried to go far enough away that I’d never cross her mind. I prayed that she had done whatever she needed in her heart to leave me behind. My world only hurt her, and her number had been up since the second she walked into that classroom that first day. The moments I spent in the euphoria of her embrace were not worth the torment she had suffered. I was selfish to had demanded them of her. As I spoke to daft customer service representatives, her soft freesia scented flesh broiled in invisible flames that would harden it to stone, forever. My mind was melting, she couldn’t know it, but I burned with her. I felt the pain of every flame that scorched her very soul out of her fragile body. I walked with her in hell. This was my nightmare, and it hurt to know that I belonged here. I deserved this pain. I didn’t protect her from anything. It was my fault Victoria had gotten to my Bella. And I would spend the entirety of my existence trying to make it up to her. She’d likely send me away with her first breath into immortality, and I would go. But Victoria’s life would be mine, this I vowed.

Not even my own time of change, in the searing in the sulfuric flames of the abyss, was there ever a stretch of my time on this earth that lasted longer than those flights.

* * *

** JPOV **

If there was anyone home, they’d hear me coming.  I ran through the forest, the howls diminishing behind me, my heart thudding more from fear than from my pace. Not fear of confronting leeches, fear that i f there was anyone home… That meant Bella was back with them. Back with the bloodsuckers. I was so close, so close to fixing the damage he had done to her, so close to making her see that I could make her happy.  If she would just let me try, just let me in, I could give her what she thought was lost. If I could just keep these  _ fucking vampires away from her!! _

But if I arrived and the house was empty, Bella was still missing. Either way, laying eyes on that house was not going to bring good news. 

As I approached the river I slowed to a walk, peering through the darkness towards the house. 

Light. There was light a small light on in one room. The bleach-like smell began to singe my nostrils, even from this distance. They were there. I stopped at the edge of the trees and felt my heart break.

Three vampires stood in the glow of the lamp, peering into the darkness, directly at me. There was no question I was seen. I wasn’t trying to be stealthy; I didn’t care if I was seen. Two males and a little female. It occurred to me that the beat of my own heavy heart was not the only thump I could hear. There was another heart beating in that house, beating so hard it sounded like it would burst through the chest of its owner.  _ Bella!  _ It had to be her heart and from the sound of it, something was definitely wrong. More than wrong, the beats came so fast they nearly made one continuous sound. Bella was in that house, and she was in trouble. 

The second before I moved my feet to run towards Bella, to rescue her from whatever unspeakable act the blood-sucking demons were doing that caused her heart to sound like that, a blond vampire turned quickly towards an exit. He was stopped swiftly by the hand of another blond male vampire.

Three against one. Was I ready for this fight, alone? I didn’t think the pack would cross into this territory to defend this fight. I felt the familiar vibrations shaking my body from head to toe as I prepared to phase.

I was pulled from my phase by another terrifying sound more than a mile away in the distance. A sound that stopped me short. The crunch of tires turning into the long driveway leading to the house. Tires, moving much too fast down the winding drive, the purr of an expensive sports engine. 

_ Who the  _ _ hell is _ _ that? _


	5. Conniptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Just playing with her toys! 
> 
> Huge thanks to mariescullen for her editing!

**_ #NowPlaying: My Plague – Slipknot _ **

**BPOV**

It was too fast, much too fast. Everything was happening way too fast. Even the new expanses in my mind had difficulty accommodating it. My heart was thrashing in my chest, the gaping hole now an inferno full of magma. It was scalding, incinerating, and growing hotter by the second. Screams threatened to rupture once again through my clenched teeth, teeth that no longer felt the threat of breaking under the tightening of my now healed jaw. Someone was coming, watching us at the edge of the forest, someone Alice couldn’t see, and for the love of whatever gods may be, a car, a car with a smoothly running engine was racing down the driveway. I could hear the gravel hitting the fenders.  _ Someone, PLEASE, say out loud who it is! _

“ It’s a  Quileute … I’m fairly certain it’s the grandson of a powerful Quileute ,” Carlisle explained. “ And someone’s coming down the drive . ” 

Huh? Driving the car or outside?!  _ For the love of God _ _ , I can’t talk or I’ll scream! _

A  Quileute . It had to be Jacob. Jacob was coming and he was going to find me here, burning .  Jacob wouldn’t be in the expensive-sounding vehicle. He’d be in the forest, running with heavy padded footsteps.  How would I explain to him that it wasn’t the  Cullens who had bitten me? _ It was Victoria, you fool! _ _ And you have to go protect Charlie! _ I was not the one who needed protection. Surely he wouldn’t leave Charlie  undefended , with Victoria  stalking, incensed from her encounter with Alice and Jasper.  _ Why was he here? _

“Rose and Emmett are  here,  Esme too ,”  Alice  breathed. _ Ah, that’s who’s in the car _ . More to come and gaze upon my funeral pyre.  “But why is a Quileute spying on us from the fore st? Carlisle, what is going on? ”

“Our family has had a long-s tanding treaty with the  Quileutes , since before you and Jasper joined us… I suspect he’s a friend of Bella’s who’s tracke d her here. It seems as so the w olves of  Ephraim Black ’ s time have continued…”

“The… what? Wolves? As in werewolves?” asked Jasper, perplexed.

“Not in the traditional sense, but  principally , yes.”

“Bella! I know you can hear me!” Alice trilled somewhere close to my bedside. “Werewolves are  _ not _ good company to keep!” 

“Surely he wouldn’t break the treaty by coming here with a fight. We’ve held our end, and I’ll trust they’ll  hold theirs.”  Carlisle confidently proclaimed, always so sure of himself , his intentions always honest . He was so pure and good. 

“And what exactly is our end of that deal?” Jasper asked  inquisitively .

“Not to bite a human. We’ve held true to that for many years.”

I heard Jasper’s hair swish as he turned his head to look at where I lay.

“ Perhaps but… do these wolves know that?” he asked, his voice troubled. 

Carlisle’s response was cut short .  Th e car  approaching on the drive was slowing to a stop to park in front of the house .  A powerful  disillusion  washed over me . 

Edward still wasn’t here. Maybe he wouldn’t come. He had made it perfectly clear, he didn’t want me. Alice was wrong, he wouldn’t  w ant to be here for this, he didn’t care.  I hadn’t realized through my torment  I had developed some semblance of hope; hope that he would come and that he would somehow find the words to say to make all of this better again , though I didn’t know what those words could  be . That again, like with James, he’d come to pull me out of the pits of hell that I roasted in, to make it worth it, to make this pain  _ mean _ something. That somehow… he’d still want me.  Impossible… it never made sense for him to love me.

No,  Edward wasn’t here. He didn’t have to be; it wasn’t his responsibility to be here. He didn’t owe me anything. I would always remember the beautiful catalyst that broug ht me to this new world into which I was now thrown, literally screaming; I was here because of Edward. It would be a reminder that  the love was  real. It had flowed through my fingers like water, gone and impossible to regain grasp of , but it  _ had _ existed. And someday,  perhaps ,  the memories of the days that Edward and I shared amongst the wildflowers in the mountain meadow ,  would be worth the insurmountable walls of pain ; worth the pain that had  enclosed the entirety of my being for close to two days. 

Yet, in the trees, outside of the house, his pulse pounding thick and wet in his veins, the flow of which I could now _ hear _ , was Jacob. The chugging sound of the blood flow set a new fire ablaze in my throat, and my mouth watered.  He was here for me, again. I owed him so much.  Would he hate me when he found me, cold and hard as stone? Would I repulse him now? Had I lost my sun, my best friend, my Jacob? 

But now these thoughts had to be pushed to cavernous recesses of my mind because I could feel the minute temperature change in the  air as dawn threatened to break. The beating inside my rib cage hummed like helicopter blades. T he  fires blazed hotter than ever before, the concentration point growing smaller  in area but immeasurably greater  in agony. My chest rose towards the ceiling as my back arched violently. My fingernails dug holes into the bedding. I gritted my teeth and  groaned with every exhale. 

* * *

** JPOV **

I crept along the tree line, around the propert y to the front, giving me a view down the winding  driveway. They knew I was here… Why hadn’t they come out? Somewhere in the mansion, Bella’s heart  zoomed on, and the sou nd of painful moans met my ears; my body inst inctually shimmering to phase in response.  A  BMW was speeding up the driveway, headlights off.  I could see two silhouettes through the tinted windows of the car, a male and a female.  I’d have to pick them off before they got inside, before  the fig ht could become more one-sided than it already was. Bella was in pain, and it sounded  _ bad _ . I had to act fast.

The car parked in front of the house and a tall blond Barbie type  stepped long and lean out of the driver’s side and a large, burly, dark-haired leech exited the passenger’s side  a second later. They both stopped short, meeting each other’s gaze with a look of  trepidation . At the same time, their bleachy scent hit my no strils, and my scent hit theirs . It was now or never; the final act I came here for.

A snap of a synapse,  and I lunged, phasing mid-air  before my feet could hit the ground .  It was war.  I  smashed into the  broad-shouldered vampire with the force of a freight train , the second his eyes had focused on me . The blond runway model was on my back, all teeth and nails, a millisecond after, before even the reverberations of my impact silenced  in the trees.  Another, smaller vampire that I had not seen before, screamed from the backseat of the car, her ha nds clinging the sides of her face in terror.  _ Fuc _ _ k _ _! _ Three aga inst one. I hadn’t seen the brunette in the back.  She was out in an instant , her blows cracking into my skull , as the dark haired  tick reared back , roaring in his attempt s to throw me off. The snarls were deafening, and  rapidly I  saw that I did not have the upper hand in this battle.  The entangled chaos of the three to one brawl rolled down a steep ravine at the driveway’s edge to the side of the mansion, taking out decades worth of trees on its way.

With  the two females on my back, and the large male’s shoulder clamp ed securely in my tee th, I bucked and reared to throw them off, to keep their arms from securing around my chest.  I felt my shoulder blades crack under the pressure from the grips of the leeches clinging to my back. B lows from the male’s fists ra ined on my head and neck in his attempt to free his shoulder from my jaw . A metallic screech echoed through the forest as my teeth lost their hold and scraped across his marble skin as I let go. I was losing, and losing bad.

The screeching of  tire s skidding on asphalt and gravel from up the  ridge startled all four of us. T he three  enraged vampires pause d for a fraction of a second , but it was long enough  for me to throw them off. I back ed away, swiftly, not letting them out of my sight , snarling and frothing at the mouth , u sing their temporary distraction to reg roup. I felt gashes near my neck , the hot sticky blood congealing in my fur, the wounds already beginning to heal.  At the top of the embankment, mangled with twisted trees and  smashed underbrush, stood the three vampires I had seen through the dimly lit picture window… And one more.  Growls rumbled up from my chest with every breath as I sized up the  now  seven vampires surrounding me. Every vampire was in an offensive crouch,  snarling and pursed for  the  continuation of this  fight .  The screeching tires must have announced the last leech’s arrival.

It was him. Her precious vampire boyfriend, her sacred, beloved,  revolting , cold, dead  _ Edward _ . 

On so many levels …  I knew  I  didn’t have snowball's chance in hell, now.

My eyes met his, and his mine. I snarled and  prepared to pounce;  Edward poised to spring right back at me . It would be b etween him and me now. My paws du g into the ground and I leaped in a single bound near ly to the top of the steep gull y. M y teeth aimed for his throat . If he had had any blood, I was thirsty for it.

Through the trees, a pained and musical voice echoed.

_“Stop it! Please just stop!”_

I couldn’t even try to land  smoothly; I couldn’t even think of my landing . I crashed to the ground on my side and slid back down through the mud and  moss . I  gaped up at the eighth vampire,  who stood to the  side of the embankment looking down in horror at the scuffle . She clutched the sides of her head , hand s full of clumps of  achingly beautiful  chestnut hair, as though she  would yank it from her scalp .

Everything was clear to me now. She was dead. Everything was over. The world crashed down around me, and I decided in that instant to just let the vampires kill me. They had won. I was done.  Bella was d ead.  She was gone forever, and no one could ever, ever bring her back now …

Especially, n ot back to me. 


	6. Chasing The Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, just playing with Stephenie’s toys. 
> 
> Huge Thank you to mariescullen for beta-ing this story! I am so grateful. 
> 
> Add me on Facebook for teasers and updates!

**_ #NowPlaying: Lightning Crashes – Live _ **

**_ BPOV _ **

A war raged inside me .  My heart was failing, the fire desperately consuming, frenzied in its attempts to keep beating.

T he heat surged in my chest  and was follo wed by a deep thud. Two slight palpitations , and  nothing . For seconds, the cool lack of pain was all I could  feel. 

And then, my eyes opened into this new world. In a microsecond, I had taken in everything around me. The house was dark save for the single lamp that glowed in the room I occupied. Th e light was what I would have once described as dim, but now it danced in every color of the rainbow, plus a color I had never seen before. The furniture was still covered in sheets, the bed I had burned in the only thing that had been used since they left. Dust motes spun in the room heavily, in a celestial dance. 

Before a second had passed, a deafening roar and a blast like a wrecking ball shattered my revelry, and the very floors shook underneath me. Smells assaulted me from all sides, creating an invisible but very apparent trail through the doorway. I could distinctly separate the three vampires’ scents. Another purring vehicle was moving up the drive , I could hear the whirr of each of the mechanisms inside of the machine . I was off the bed in an instant,  horrified , warring inside of myself as to whether I needed fight or flight. My first sound as a newborn was a horrified gasp. I was alone in  my first  breath of  immortality.

Something was wrong outs ide, and everyone was gone . I was out of the front door as swiftly and effortlessly as though I had simply thought of it. The sm ell of canine and vampire  hung thick in the air.  I saw  every detail of  a tangled mess of  bodies and fur roll over a steep  ridge at the end of the driveway. I raced to its edge in  shock , joining Alice, Jasper, and Carlisle  as we watched  the calamity below. Suddenly, I was  aware th at the sports car barreling towards  me. 

It spun out as I turned to look , slinging gravel with tires squealing, stopping inches from where I stood.  I took in the detail of every piece of debris that emanated from the slide.  The driver was out, standing at the edge of the  embankment , sharing my expression of horror as the sound of tearing metal and snarls roared through the forest. He looked over as I entered his periphe ral and his shocked expression intensified .

No longer did the shadows and weakness of my human eyes dull  it , and for what seemed like the first time, I saw his face. There was no longer relief tied to the action, but still, he took my breath away. I couldn’t bear it, I had to look away.

The huge wolf sighted Edward and roared, shaking the air with his rage. _ Oh, that’s right. The fight _ . I could see why Edward has said our kind was easily distracted. Jacob l unged towards the top of the ledge, and as his paws left the ground I  begged  for them to stop. My eyes  stung with tears that did n ot come. A grief-stricken look of confusion  washed over  Jacob’s doglike fa ce as he crashed into the  brush and exposed stones. Realization visibly  broke his heart as he  slid backward , defeated .

The only sound was the glugging of Jacob’s heart as all eyes looked astonished at me.  The silence of my heart was overbearing , and I was acutely aware of the stillness in my chest . It should have been pounding .  Edward took a st ep closer  to me and I turned away. This was too much. Edward always told me  how much different vampire kind was from humans…  that vampire emotions were different than those of humans. I was stunned to find myself feeling very human emotions, only strengthened.

“Bella…” he breathed;  his voice was like a hand between my legs.

A whole ten seconds had passed since I opened my eyes as a vampire. I spun on my heel and took off into the forest.

** EPOV **

I heard the  dissonance of shrieking thoughts before I even pulled into the driveway, and I could feel the vibrations from the distant  combat unde r the tires my rental car. The sound was dangerously loud, and if humans were in the area, surely they’d hear. I sped down the gravel drive with the pedal to the floor , drifting around the corners. As I came into the clearing, I  spotted my father , Alice , and Jasper,  standing in defensive crouches along the edge of tangled wood s.  I sl ammed  the brakes and the car spun 180 degrees , skidding to a stop near the culvert next to the house.  I was out and to the edge in the blink of an eye to join them . I was astonished to see Rosalie, Emmett, and Esme clinging to the sides of a roaring werewolf.  Before I could launch myself into the jumble, s omething  flashed across my periphery.  I spun  to meet the approaching stranger.

My G od. Bella. If ever her beauty was captivating before, it was now absolutely soul-searing.  She looked away from my gaze and raised her hands to the sides of her head as though she was going mad.  Ripping my eyes from this  impossibly beautiful sight, the werewolf was now roaring and lunging up the steep  ravine , teeth bared,  eyes trained on my throat. 

Bella shrieked for the fight to end, the sorrow in her sobs breaking my heart into a thousand pieces. The entire weight of the six months of separation I had dragged myself through hit me full bore; it threatened to crush my sanity.  The wolf, seeming to share my moment of despair, missed his mark and  crashed into the ground, a show er of rocks and  undergrowth spraying from his impact.  His eyes were  no longer focused on my neck, but  trained on the goddess standing to the right of me.  All attention focused  on her, as all attention should always be.  I  uttered her name before I had consciously decided to do so. Like a songbird startled from its roost, she streaked into the forest out of sight in the blink of an eye. I stared after her,  stunned into motionlessness. 

“ Edward, follow her! The wolves are in the forest!” Esme screamed, breaking my stupor. The re was a newborn vampire on the loose in the woo ds around Forks and the Quileute wolves were once again stalking the forests. My family had been in a death match brawl with a young werewolf. Bella must  be insane with thirst. The w olves must be on  high alert; they  would have seen everything through the  pack’s mental connections , and I could hear Jacob  Black’s thoughts, shouting hateful vitriol . He thought we bit her, and he had transmitted to a whole pack of Quileute wolves that the treaty had been breached.

“He thinks we did this!” I exclaimed to my family. I didn’t have time to correct him, I had to  _ go. _

Everyone s eemed to be frozen in disbelief, but I  was off like a shot.

I was on her tail  in seconds, her hair flying behind her as she sprinted.  I tried to reason with her.

“Bella! Bella, you have to stop! Listen to me!”

“Leave me alone!” S he  cried in response, pushing ahead. We were traveling fast and she didn’t realize she was running straight towards town.  In another five minutes, she’d emerge a new, never fed vampire into the  middle of the  midmorning bustle of the small town. It’d be a massacre before she’d realized what she’d done.

“Bella, stop! ” I pleaded. My desperation was building.

“Get away from me!” H er scream rattled the woods.

“You have to stop!  You’re heading for town! You will  _ not _ be able to control  it; you have to hunt !”

She  swerved, not missing a step, heading away from the town that never knew how close to tragedy it had to just  come.

“I’ll figure it out! Leave me  _ alone!” _

She wasn’t going to stop for me. I was going to have to tackle her, and I was  dreading a physical altercation with a powerful newborn vampire.

I drew  on every sinew and pushed ahead. I leaped forward, springing into her back. We crashed into the forest floor, skidding, leaving a run way of mangled forest in our wake. Her nails sunk into my flesh, and she bit and rained blows as we slid. She was strong, but she was new, and I was on top of her pinning her arms to the ground above her head  before  we came to a stop.

“Let me  _ go!  _ Get off of me!” she sobbed, straining to fight against the grasp of my hands, pinning her wrists into the dirt.  Her ankles dug into the ground,  and her head thrashed violently from side to side. Dirt caked into her  chestnut hair and h er teeth gnashed .  “Please, just let me  _ go _ !”  Her chest heaved with tearless sobs. “Let me go, God , just please let me go! ” 

She begged to be away from me, and it shredded my heart . 

“Bella please, I’m not going to hurt you, but you can’t go off o n your own like this, you have t o hunt.  You are  _ dangerous _ right now. Let me show you how, an d I’ll leave . Bella, give me this . Your father is in that town.”

This idea broke through her  glaze and her eyes snapped forward, focusing on a point over my shoulder just past my head . S he was still . I fought to meet her gaze . She wouldn’t look at me.  _ Bella baby, please look at  _ _ me.  _ _ Please come back to me baby, please.  _ My thoughts threatened to spill out of me in wracking sobs. 

When she stopped fighting, I released her arms.  Still refusing to look at me, she covered her face with her hands and cried. She wailed mournfully, her sadness more than even her new mind could bear. I sat  do wn on cross-legged on the forest floor and pulled her into my lap. She didn’t resist.  Face still hidden from my view , she laid in my arms and lap like a child,  weeping into my chest . She clung to my shirt, shredded from our impact into the forest floor. 

The morning  was speckled with rare sunlight. As it climbed in the sky it’s light filtered warmly through the  forest  canopy and played off of the diamond-like facets embedded in  her skin .  I had to fix her sorrow, it was a crime against the universe that this beautiful creature felt this level of  sadness. This was all my fault, and I prayed to any god that would listen that she’d grant me the opportunity to fix it. We sat there, her legs bent , and face hidden in my arms  until her sobs shortened and her breathing evened. 

The Angel opened her eyes.  “I’m so… I’m so thirsty…” she croaked, the dryness cracking in her voice.  “Please, show me how. Just this once .”

If once was what she’d allow, I’d gladly take it.

I stood and righted her, instinctively brushing the debris from her hair. The confusion set into her face was  mystifying . She shi ed away from my hand as though I wished to strike her. She glanced at me quickly, before training her eyes on the forest around us. Still, she wouldn’t meet my gaze . If I could just get her to  _ look  _ at me, maybe she’d remember how much we’d loved each other. I could feel it coming back again.

“Where do we go?”

“Further  into the  mountains.  Farther away from people, and closer to big game. Follow me?”

She nodded once in response and looked at the ground. The way her eyelashes brushed against her cheeks  made my chest feel hollow . How I missed the blush that had been there, that would never again blossom. Her b eautiful porcelain skin glistened in the green light; gorgeous, like flowers that would never wither and die. Like the sweetest fruit, that would never fall from the boughs.

I’d  slaughter Victoria for thi s, and dance around the flames.

But foremost,  I had to get some blood into this girl, before she went on a rampage from thirst. I reached my hand out for hers and she turned away.

“All you have to do is lead the way.”

I nodded, understanding , though I felt her rejection like a frigid wind . I turned and ran through the forest, hanging  on  her every footfall  as she gracefully fle w through the forest  at my side, just out of arms reach .

* * *

** JPOV **

She was gone in the blink of an eye. She took off into the forest, and the long-haired brunette vampire that had arrived with the blond e and the big male screamed out to Edward, warning him of the wolves in the forest.  His eyes briefly locked on mine.

“He thinks we did it!” he exclaimed.

_ Ah, that’s right. _ This one could read minds. What did he mean I  _ think  _ they did it? If not them, then who else?

He flew after her in an instant. I stared at the point in which she had disappeared through the trees in shock. 

_ Jake! What the hell? _

_ Bella’s a vampire? They bit her! Treaty’s done now! _

_ We’re on our way Jake, just hang on, we’re on our way. _

I was on my feet in an instant, growls shaking my body, intensely aware I was surrounded and outnumbered.  In minutes the pack would be here, and all bets were off. 

The tiniest vampire , with black cropped hair , one that I had seen through the window ,  broke the silence. 

“Listen to me please! We didn’t do this to her!” the littlest vampire screamed, approaching me just a little faster than I was comfortable with. I snarled in response, teeth bared. “It was another vampire, a redhead,  she’s been hunting her!”

_ Well no shit, Sherlock. _ _ Where have YOU been? _

“She got to her, and I saw it just in time. I can see things that are going to happen, and I saw it happen, and I got to her in time. But  I was too late… she had already bitten her. It was too late to stop the change.”

I stared at her perplexed, trying to comprehend what she had just said. I could hear the confusion in the thoughts of my pack mates as they sped through the forests in a direct line to our location, prepared for war. 

_ Of course, they’re going to say they didn’t do it, Jake! _

_ There’s no way the redhead got through our line. _

_ Who was watching her? _

_ Well not me, I was at Harry’s. _

_ I was dealing with Seth. _

_ Who was watching Bella? _

_ Fuck! _

The  pack’s clamor changed to stunned silence in my head. We had left her alone.

The leech had gotten through us. We were distracted by Harry’s death, and she got through us.

The smallest vampire continued.

“I can’t see you, or your pack. Victoria got through you. I understand you were protecting her, and all of us thank you for that… but that’s the only way I could see. When Bella is away from the wolves… I can see her.”

They hadn’t broken the treaty; I had. We had failed Bella. The whole pack had failed. Our purpose, our reason for existing, was to protect humans and our tribe, and we had failed. Failed in the most miserable way we could have. The approaching wolves all slowed to stops, and the howls that had echoed in the distance quieted. The heft of this outcome washed through every member of the pack. 

“Victoria is still out there. She slipped away; I couldn’t get to her. She’s like smoke, there and gone.” A tall vampire with collar-length blonde hair reported. He was covered in grisly scars and seemed to speak with a southern twang.

“Who’s watching her father?” the tiny vampire asked, staring at me intently. 

_ He was on his way home from my mom’s last I knew…  _ Leah, Harry’s daughter and only female member of the pack thought, fearfully.

The movie star blond male pressed the issue.

“Jacob, Jacob Black , right? My name is Carlisle Cullen. You uh… met… my wife , Esme, and my son and daughter Rosalie and Emmett wh en they arrived,” he said, nodding towards the trio I had attacked upon their exit from the BMW. I had seen him somewhere before, long ago before I knew all the tribal legends were real. I think he was a… doctor, maybe? I couldn’t exactly place him but knew it was medical. “ Alice and Jasper are also my children, and they are the ones who saved Bella. I knew your grandfather well. I see the genes have carried on. We mean you and your pack no harm, and from our perspective, the treaty still stands.”

The big dark-haired male snorted .

“Uh, hello?” Runway model Barbie exclaimed, her hair full of twigs and leaves.

“But we must know. ” Carlisle continued, cutting their protests  shor t. “ W here is Charlie, and is he being protected?”

I would have to phase back in order to warn him that Charlie was alone, unprotected. Phase back with all these pissed off bloodsuckers surrounding me, my back up now retreating. 

From all sides now, the six irritated vampires took a step closer to me. 


	7. Drain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the Internet will throw you gifts. I got my man off the internet, ha! This time, the internet has bequeathed me the most awesome Marie S Cullen as a beta. I am so grateful for every second of time she puts into these. Check her out, because she’s an AMAZING writer. 
> 
> Remember to look me up on fb, under Seygen Belial for updates and sneak peeks! 
> 
> As always, all characters belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just like to play with her toys.

**_ #NowPlaying – Seasons in the Abyss – Slayer _ **

** BPOV **

My breakdown had embarrassed me. The first moments of my new life were spent sobbing like an infant and making an ass of myself. I had nearly  run straight into town. What if I hadn’t listened to him?

I flew through the forest at Edward’s side, keeping enough space between us to prevent the illusion of pretense. I didn’t want him to feel I was imposing anything on him. I needed him to show me what to do, just this once. I could let him go, and I wouldn’t let him shoulder the responsibility of taking care of his newborn ex-girlfriend. How pathetic. As long as I didn’t look into his eyes, I could keep myself to this narrative. I was grateful he was willing to take me on my first hunt, but if I looked too closely, I feared I’d fall to my knees and beg for him to love me again. 

_ And what about after this hunt? _ I had no idea what I was going to do. Charlie would be looking for me; Jacob must be devastated. I couldn’t go home and I had no money to start out anywhere else alone. I couldn’t even go back for my truck or extra clothes. Maybe I could find a cave somewhere in the wilderness, and spend my time as a newborn there, far away from civilization. I could restart somewhere no one knew me, where no one would be aware of the differences in my looks. Once I knew I could control myself, I could get a job, I could make money. Charlie could believe I was lost, maybe he could be told that the wolves he thought he was hunting had gotten me. It couldn’t be too hard to set that scene, especially with my new abilities. I would miss Charlie. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. And Renee, poor Renee. I hoped this wouldn’t break her. 

Aside from this barrage of thoughts, another feeling was manifesting its self in me now. Slowly, it had crept in, but I could feel it in every fiber as I ran. I was positive that if I wanted to tunnel under the river or to claw my way straight through the bedrock, it wouldn't take me very long. The objects around me—the trees, the shrubs, the rocks all seemed fragile now. I was  _ strong. _

Edward suddenly halted, holding his arm out needlessly to stop me as well. I stopped short of allowing his extended arm to touch me. I had to be careful if I were going to be able to leave him alone after this. He looked at me, struggling to make the eye contact I wouldn’t allow. 

“What do you hear? Do you smell anything?” he asked, his voice like silk. 

I closed my eyes and listened. What couldn’t I hear? Every individual leaf had a sound as the breezed whispered through. Every gnat buzzed a song. A creek babbled in the distance, maybe a mile away. Smell? Mostly him, his delicious scent like honey, lilac, and sun. But also, rot and moss, the sap in the evergreens, the nutty aroma of rodents in their tree root homes. The clean smell of the creek, unappealing despite my thirst. And then something else, stronger and rich, yet somehow, only slightly more appetizing than the creek. I wrinkled my nose, but my aching thirst snapped my eyes open.

“A deer, a large one. Maybe an elk? By the creek.” I responded, hoping I was right. Leave it to me to be a clumsy, inaccurate vampire.

“Exactly. Now, close your eyes again.”

I closed my eyes, but I heard him approach. His hands settled on my shoulders and I was thankful my heart no longer could race and give away my thoughts. They seemed warm as they never had before .  If my knees could’ve shaken, they would have.

“Close your eyes, and look deep, Bella. Step outside yourself and let your mind go. Forget your name, forget everything except your thirst. Let your thoughts drain.” He instructed expertly, in whispers close to my ear.

The sound of the animal’s heart joined with its scent, and I went insane. There was no thought. I tore through the forest and came out at the creek in seconds. I leaped over the creek effortlessly, wrapping my arms around the antlered animal’s neck upon my decent, taking it down with me. My teeth sunk into its neck like warm butter, slicing through tendons, fat, and muscle. Its struggles were pitiful; the hooves impacting my body could’ve been a caress. My physical need left the once-powerful animal desecrated, eviscerated before its eyes could close. I would have to work on making cleaner kills. I felt the warmth of the animal’s blood from the top of my head to my toes. I needed more.

I turned to look at Edward behind me, focusing my eyes on his chest, careful to avoid the eye contact that would undo me. My thirst being somewhat muted allowed me to think clearer.  _ Don’t be a pest Bella; he made it perfectly clear, he doesn’t want you. _ Even venom hadn’t healed the hole in my chest. 

“Thank you…” I whispered. There was no question of my whisper reaching his ears. “I think I can handle it on my own from here. I’m sorry to have made such a racket.” The blue sundress Alice put me in while I burned was torn. Blood and dirt from Edward’s earlier tackle and my messy hunting stained the light blue in grimy patches.”  _ That’s me, the world’s only graceless vampire. _ I shifted my weight so the shredded skirt would cover my exposed thighs.

“Handle it on your own? Handle what on your own exactly? Bella where are you going to go? What are you going to do? Do you have any sort of plan at all?” he snapped at me. His silken voice was tinged with anger. Of course, he was angry. Having to travel thousands of miles to take care of his incompetent ex-girlfriend through her newborn stage was the last thing he could’ve wanted. I had been so ready to be a vampire before he left, and now that I had it, it was all wrong. None of this was supposed to have been this way. It was supposed to be his bite that lovingly seared me into eternity by his side. Whatever bodily functions I possessed would always be stamped by Victoria. I would never be able to wash her off of me. I shuddered. 

“I’m not real sure yet Edward, in case you haven’t noticed. But it’s not like I have many options. I obviously can’t go back; Victoria is still out there… I can go hunt her now. She wanted me so badly. Well, the playing field is just a little more level now, don’t you think? She makes it on her own, if she can do it, so can I.” I responded, resentment painting my voice. There was no need for him to worry himself about me.

“No,  _ Bella, _ ” he spat. “The playing field isn’t  _ level _ . Victoria is a centuries-old vampire and you’re hours old. Not to mention the pack of dogs you’ve been running with. They think we changed you, you know. The treaty is void. They’ll all be out for our heads now. God only knows what’s happened in our absence.” He was so justified to speak to me in anger, but the heated words stung all the same. I had affected so many lives because of my stupid decision to jump off that cliff alone.  _ Why hadn’t I just waited for Jacob? _ I had to help deal with this, I couldn’t just take off and let the  Cullens clean up the mess I’d made. “Just… Follow me back to the house. Please? Can you give me that?”

At first, I was surprised that he didn’t immediately want me gone, but it made sense. I owed them my presence during this ordeal, and the aftermath thereof. It was my responsibility to help fix this, and I would. Leaving them alone in this would be selfish. I would make myself as unnoticeable as possible, and I would help clear the air with the wolves. I would be the one to take down Victoria, there was no use in risking more lives. I’d make sure Charlie was safe and as happy as possible. And then, I would never burden these people with my existence ever again. I had hurt them all enough.

I nodded once in agreement.

“Let’s get you some more to drink first.” He said. My throat seared. 

He turned to run, and I once again flew beside him through the dense forest, just out of arms reach.

* * *

** EPOV **

I had at least gotten her to agree to not run away from me. She saw the logic, that she was dangerous, and that there were dangers lurking that we’d have to deal with. Maybe if I could coax a bit of time with me out of her, she’d remember how much we’d loved each other. If I could just get her to look into my eyes, she’d see; if she’d open herself enough to let me make this up to her. If she’d allow it, I’d spend all of eternity making this right. 

I accompanied her as she hunted and watched as she took down three animals in succession, each kill more graceful than the last. How sensual it was to watch her hunt, the tatters of her torn sundress exposing her hips and thighs enough that I caught glimpses of the thin panties she wore underneath. A tear in the side of her dress exposed a tantalizing bit of the edge of her pale breast, and I promised myself that I would get her to allow me to kiss that exact spot one day. I hadn’t known it was possible that I’d want her body more than I had wanted her blood. Her exposed skin threatened to undo me as I watched her take down a mountain lion near the Olympic Hot Springs. Immortality seemed to have made her body shapelier, fuller, slightly rounder. The curve in the small of her back made venom pool in my mouth, and I envied the lion for the way her body pressed against it. My gentlemanly nature threatened to fail me. What would she do, how would she react if I just pushed her up against a tree and pressed my body to hers? A moan she emitted while draining the more appetizing carnivorous animal sent shockwaves through my entire body. Human Bella was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and vampire Bella was all that she was, but somehow more feminine. She dripped with untapped sexuality, and I had never physically wanted her more. 

She stood and stared down at the carcass, wiping a drop of blood from her lips with her fingertip.  _ Oh Bella, let me taste that finger…  _ I had never had such overtly sexual thoughts of Bella, and my inner dialogue surprised me. 

“Alright. What now?” she asked, her voice flat.  _ Bella Love… the possibilities. _ It was difficult to keep my mind on the situation at hand. I wrenched my eyes away from her curves. 

“Let’s go and see what the others are doing. I’m sure they have a lot on their plate. I can only hope they’ve calmed the wolves. Your friend seemed to have thought it impossible for Victoria to get through his pack of mutts. I never dreamed Alice wouldn’t be able to see through them...” Once again, I put my hand out for hers, silently begging for her to touch me. She studied my outstretched palm but turned away and crossed her arms, like she was hugging herself, or perhaps, holding herself together. 

“It wasn’t their fault! I went off on my own.” She responded, an air of defensiveness in her voice.  _ Was she protective of this boy? How close had she and the mongrel gotten? _ A jolt of jealousy coursed through me. 

In a flash, she took off through the forest towards the house. I followed behind her in silence, painfully aware that though I burned for her, she had yet to look me in the eyes. 

* * *

The past 36 hours had been rough for Chief Charlie Swan. Harry Clearwater’s heart attack not only left him with the grief of a lost friend, but the family left behind, two kids and a wife, was troubling to Charlie. How those kids could stand to run off gallivanting when their mother was so grief-stricken was beyond him. Charlie’s own daughter had been out running as well, he hadn’t seen her since late the night before the incident.  _ None of these kids understand anything these days, there’s no sense of respect. _ It surprised him, coming from Bella, who was usually sensitive and behaved properly in difficult situations. 

Remembering how Sue had cried into his shoulder sent a shudder through him. Charlie wasn’t normally good with emotions, and even the death of a close friend left him with no knowledge gained on how to deal with such things. He dealt with his problems by communing with himself and God on the area’s many rivers, fishing rod in hand. That’s where his emotions could run their course, and that's where he’d mourn for his friend. He didn’t know how to convince a widow with two kids in the house that everything would be alright. He would most certainly be there to fill in what gaps he could. Sue was not in this alone, and he hoped he had conveyed at least that. 

Instead of the 110 into Forks, a straight shot home, Charlie decided to take a back road. Mora Road was a peaceful road through the dense forest, running along the  Quillayute River, crossing over the Dickey right outside of La Push. The extra time would allow him to collect his thoughts and regroup before arriving home, where he hoped to find Bella fixing supper.  _ Besides, no one drives slower than a person with a police cruiser behind them.  _ He was far less likely to run into other cars on Mora.

Just past the curve at the ranger’s station, he came upon a car parked on the opposite side of the tree-lined road. A young woman with blazing red hair was bent over the open hood of a car. She leaned forward, her light blue cut off shorts showing off her flawless, long legs, gazing into the engine. She chewed anxiously on her fingernail.

Charlie was a police officer; It was his job to help people in distress, such as this beautiful stranded motorist. There had been those wolves Bella had seen in this area, and it wasn’t safe for a young lady to be alone in the wilderness. His reason for making a U-turn and pulling up behind the broken-down car definitely had nothing to do with the way her ass cheeks hung out of the bottoms of those jean shorts.

He saw the young woman’s head emerge from around the open hoo d, smiling and waving as he pulled the cruiser up behind the stalled car. It was a dilapidated thing, rusted through all over, with Oregon license plates. The driver bounced up and down on her toes enthusiastically, pleased that help had arrived. Her smile was stunningly white and her tousled red curls blew in the breeze across her face, obscuring her eyes. The clouds had rolled back in after a short sunny period that morning, but even in the gray overcast light, she seemed radiant. Seeing her up close caused the officer to gasp and tighten his grip on the steering wheel. 

_ Holy crow, she’s gorgeous! _ Charlie thought to himself, struggling to keep his jaw from dropping. He couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t wearing a bra under her white cropped t-shirt as she bounced.

_ OK, Charlie, she’s pretty… absolutely gorgeous actually, but still; keep it professional. Be respectful. You’re a man of the law. Besides, she looks closer to Bella’s age than yours. _

H e shook the thoughts from his head, turned his roof lights on, and stepped out of the cruiser.


	8. Whisper On A Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to Marie S Cullen. It is an absolutely honor to have you as a beta! Two Chapters in one week! 
> 
> Remember to look me up on fb, under Seygen Belial for updates and sneak peeks! 
> 
> As always, all characters belong to Stephenie Meyer, I just like to play with her toys.

**_ #NowPlaying – Blue on Black by Kenny Wayne Shepherd _ **

** JPOV **

After Bella had taken off into the forest, my heart slowed, and I calmed. Maybe it was something about the doctor leech; His composed demeanor had reassured me enough to feel somewhat comfortable with returning to human form, although my nerves were still shot. The sense of calm seemed to come from outside of my body. Maybe I was finally getting ahold of the temper that came with being a wol f .

Before phasing back, I was able to relay a message to the pack. Charlie was left unprotected and the redheaded vampire was on a whole new warpath. They ran straight away to track all the roads leading from La Push to the Swan house in Forks. The little psychic leech couldn’t see Charlie at that moment. Apparently, this was a good sign that he was safe. 

The doc’s wife had practically begged me to come inside the house and offered me a set of the big dark-haired bloodsucker’s clothes. Naked as the day I was born, now that I had completely shredded my already torn shorts, I couldn’t exactly refuse. However, even in this stressful moment, I didn’t resist the urge to throw a wink and a smile at the vampire that the doc had called Rosalie, as her strange golden eyes scanned my bare body on our way in.  _ Eat your heart out, Blondie.  _

Esme directed me up a massive staircase toward a room full of sheet-covered furniture.

“Emmett has a whole dresser full of clothes in here, and you’re welcome to anything. Please, wear whatever you’d like.” Comfortable I was in my nudity, due to the lack of privacy in pack life, I decided that even the stinking clothes would be better than full-frontal nudity in polite company. I begrudgingly chose a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a black A-Shirt. 

After changing into the big one’s clothes, I descended the staircase into the living room. The doc, his wife, the seer leech, and her southern fried boyfriend, were all standing around, motionless, staring as I came  down. The couple that had been in the BMW was sitting on the couch, separated from the group.

“So. Anyone want to tell me what the  _ fuck  _ actually happened today?” I said, still standing on the last stair. My question seemed to break the ice. The little vampire Alice began speaking first, her words coming quickly.

“I told you, I see things. I saw Bella jumping off that cliff, and I saw Victoria grab her from mid-air. I knew she was being tortured, and once I was at the cliff, Jasper tracked her scent and found the cave in the cliff wall where she took her. 

“ _ Tortured?  _ She fucking tortured her?” My hands quivered.  _ Oh Bella, honey. I am so sorry _

“She did _. _ ” The doctor answered. “Bella wouldn’t have lived through her injuries without venom.”

The room spun around me and my breath quickened. I could feel the vibrations of the phase traveling through my body. 

Another weird wave of calm hit me. I was used to having to control my temper, and it was odd that I didn’t seem to be able to  _ keep  _ it in the present company.  _ What the hell is that about?  _

“As I was saying, Jasper tracked Bella’s  scent to the cave she had taken her to. I knocked Victoria off of her. I probably injured her even worse, and for that I am sorry. I knew she had been bitten, and I—,“

I put my hand up, interrupting her, looking towards the scarred vampire. “Wait, you tracked her scent, but I couldn’t? Come on!”

“I have years of practice on you, dog. Experience.” He retorted.

“As I was saying,” the little vampire continued, ignoring our exchange. “I knew she had been bitten; she was screaming about the fire.”

“Fire?” I asked. “What fire?”

The doctor answered, “The venom is excruciating. It feels like we are being burned alive. We’ve all went through it.”

I wanted to be sick.  _ Would she even be Bella anymore?  _

Alice went on, “I didn’t know that I couldn’t see her when she was around you. All the time that we’ve been gone, I thought I would see it if Victoria came for her, and we  _ all  _ thought she was more likely to go after Edward than Bella. I didn’t realize that I was double-blind; I couldn’t see Bella nor Victoria through the pack.”

“What did Bella do to piss this chick off so bad?” I asked, wondering why she had hunted Bella, especially if like she had said, it had been more likely she’d go after the ex-boyfriend leech.

“It wasn’t Bella,” the southern vampire answered. “It was us. She’s just using Bella because she knows that is what will hurt Edward the most. It’s revenge that she’s after.”

“Revenge for what?”

The doctor chose to field this question.

“We do not relish the taking of a life, but we were forced to last year. Victoria’s mate, James, tried to kill Bella, for sport. We were forced to kill him.”

My jaw dropped. This was the  _ second _ time Bella had been hunted? 

“Well! Bella’s just a big piece of juicy bait while you all are around, huh? Two vampires actively trying to kill her within a year! Yeah, that sounds like a  _ real  _ healthy relationship.”

“As if running with a pack of  out-of-control toddler dogs is any better?” Runway Barbie interjected. I threw her a cold glance as the doctor continued.

“In knowing that, you can understand why Edward left her. He thought she was safer, away from our world.” The doctor explained. 

My temper flared at his assumption.  _ Understand?  _

“No, I will never understand why he chose to leave her alone and abandoned in the woods! You don’t do that to someone you love, he should’ve made sure she was safe! We searched for her for hours! We found her cold and wet in the  dirt; she was practically a zombie for months!” I bellowed at them, my voice ringing off the bare walls. “Yes, the red head got through the pack, that is true, but this whole thing isn’t on us! You can’t introduce a human to the supernatural and expect everything to just go back to normal again because you decide you’ve made a mistake! It was too late for that! This can’t be undone!”

“And for that… we are  _ all _ truly sorry,” Carlisle whispered, looking at the floor. They all looked in different directions, made uncomfortable with my condemnation. 

“Sorry isn’t good enough, leech. Sorry doesn’t make her heart beat again. Tears on the river; it doesn’t change a thing.”

I stormed across the room and sat down hard on the covered couch Blondie was sitting on. Her boyfriend was perched on the arm next to her. She looked over at me, starring daggers, still disheveled from our fight. I reached over and picked a dead leaf out of her hair.

She had my wrist in a vice-like grip in the blink of an eye. 

“Ah! Fuck, Ow! Jeez, lady!”

She threw my hand back at me and wiped her hand on her pant leg. 

“Don’t.  _ Ever _ . Touch. Me.”

I shot her another wink in response to her scowl. 

“Careful mutt, the woman can hold her own.” Her boyfriend warned from his spot at the opposite end of the couch. I chuckled under my breath and continued with my questions.

“So, there’s no going back now, right? She’s one of you now, forever? What the hell are we going to tell her father?” All six faces were visibly troubled, and the room went silent as they considered this. 

We were all yanked from introspection at the sound of someone approaching the house through the forest. Smooth, rapid steps, but not accompanied by heart beats. They moved swiftly, and I could distinguish Edward’s heavier steps from Bella’s softer ones as they ran.  _ As she ran. _ Bella was running through the forest at vampire speed, and I was sitting on a couch in the bloodsuckers’ mansion, wearing clothes that reeked with leech stink. I might as well have been drinking tea with demons at this point. I wondered how different she’d be. I was afraid to let myself feel relief that she was alive _ ,  _ or at least, not  _ exactly _ dead. I couldn’t shake the fear that it may be worse than if she were really dead. I couldn’t believe the situation I was in and had yet to organize my thoughts. I was only loosely holding on to my sanity, and her approach increased my panic.

“He’s brought her back!” the doc’s wife gasped. 

“ Of course he did, Bella wouldn’t be stupid enough to run off on her own. Besides, I’d have seen that.” Alice responded, and edge to her voice that indicated she was feeling sensitive on the subject of her gift. It occurred to me that she was probably reeling from the fact she couldn’t see my pack.  _ Haha _ _! Too bad, Ms. Cleo. _

I stood as they reached the back steps and came in through the door. I held my breath as Bella approached and prepared myself as much as I could. I smelled her before I saw her, her scent burning my nostrils like the others, but still tinted with  _ her  _ scent. It gave me hope. 

She floated into the living room, and I was breathless. She looked like she had been beaten, minus the bruises. She was covered in blood and mud and the dress that had just been intact before she had taken off into the forest now hung from her body in tatters. Like Blondie, twigs and leaves were stuck in her long hair. She was pale, deathly so, and it chilled me to the bone. Her body seemed fuller, as though she had gained back the weight she had lost while she mourned her leech prince. Her eyes were terrible; they glowed a vivid red. Her pretty brown eyes were gone forever. With a deep sob, I dropped to my knees and covered my face.

“Oh, Bella.” I sputtered as I cried. My sobs were the only sound. 

“She only looks so bedraggled because it was her first hunt. She hasn’t been hurt further.” Edward answered my thoughts. I had barely noticed his entrance.

“Stay the hell out of my head!” I yelled at him, wiping my wet eyes as I stood back up.

“Stop, please.” Bella implored. Her voice was like bells. This was so much to handle. “I know I must look like death warmed over. I need a shower and an outfit.” She looked towards Carlisle and Esme. “Would it be too much to ask?”

“Are you nuts? Of course not!” Alice chirped an answer for them, grabbing Bella under her elbow. She had her whisked up the stairs that lead to the room where I had gotten dressed, in a blur. I stared after her in disbelief. Seeing Bella move with supernatural speed was almost too much. Tears still stinging my eyes, I couldn’t look away from the top of the stairs where she had disappeared. 

“We thank you for everything you’ve done for Bella, Jacob. And I thank you for trying to protect her when I had failed.” Edward said, breaking my focus. How dare  _ he _ speak to me? 

“Yes, you did fail. Worse than anyone. This is all your fault, leech.” I responded. “At least the pack tried. You turned and you ran. You can shove your apology up your cold, dead—,” 

“You’re more than welcome to leave now, dog,” Rosalie said as she and Emmett stood from the couch and advanced toward me. I stood my ground.

“I’m not going anywhere until I’ve talked to Bella.”

“Then, wait outside.” Emmett barked. 

“ Ya know big guy, that sounded an awful lot like an order. Who’s boss do you think you are?” I challenged him, stepping forward until we were toe to toe. My body shuddered violently, and he snarled through gritted teeth. Jasper stood close by, poised to strike as soon as one of us did, and Rosalie stood at her man’s flank. 

Carlisle was between us in an instant, a hand on each of our chests, separating us. “Rose, Em, we owe him some hospitality.”

“I’ll wait on the porch.” I spat coldly. I slammed the door on my way out of the front, rattling the windows in their panes.

I don’t know why I bothered to wait. This was for nothing; a match on a fire. Cold on ice. Talking to her wouldn’t change a thing. It wouldn’t ever bring her back. 

* * *

**_ #NowPlaying – She by Kiss _ **

Charlie stood at the good of the broken-down car, shining his flashlight into the engine. The breeze had picked up, and the sun was beginning to sink. The thin jacket he wore suddenly seemed less than adequate, and he wished he had brought his gloves. He knew it was very unlikely that he would see anything fixable on the roadside with no tools, but he felt obligated, as a man, to check. He feared offering the pretty girl a ride straight away may have been creepy. He jiggled a few pulleys that the serpentine belt rode on.

“Go ahead and try it now.” He called to the girl. She sat in the driver’s seat, awaiting his instruction. The car cranked but did not start.  _ Damn. _

“The thing has gas in it, right?” he asked, yelling around the hood.

Her giggle sounded like wind-chimes. “Yes sir, I just put some in it in Forks.” She called back. It made something inside of his belly tingle when she called him ‘sir’.

He pulled out the oil dipstick, wiped it on his already stained jeans, reinserted it, and pulled it back out. The oil level read a little low, but nothing worrisome. He checked the antifreeze reservoir and found it nearly full. Nothing seemed to be leaking onto the ground. 

Not sure what else he could do, he jiggled the wires connected to the battery to ensure they were properly attached.

“Try it one more time for me.” He called to the girl. The car did not turnover.

“Go ahead and try to start it!” he yelled, louder than before. No response came. The view of the driver’s seat was obstructed by the open hood, so he stepped around the front of the car to get a visual. 

The car was empty.  _ What the hell?  _

He spun around to look for the girl, and nearly had a heart attack to find she was right behind him, standing very close.  _ How did she get there without me seeing her?  _ Her beguiling smile had become a wide, manic grin and she gazed up at him through her eyelashes. He froze as their eyes met. Her irises were blood red. He felt his hands shake and suddenly his bowels felt loose.

_ Contacts. A lot of kids these days are wearing those colored contacts,  _ h e reasoned, though something inside him told him it was much more. His heart pounded and he felt even colder than before.

“Why don’t we try to get things started in a different way, Chief Swan?” she cooed, moving closer to him now, close enough to press her hips against his. She rested her hands on his belt buckle. He could smell her sweet breath, but he swore it felt cold. He thought his heart would burst. Her chest pressed against his as she stood on her tip toes and softly kissed his neck. His mind was in chaos, but somewhere in it, he registered that she was cold and hard as stone.

As he felt her lips part against his neck, and as her hands moved to unbuckle his belt, he realized he could hear a galloping sound in the distance. He was powerless to acknowledge it; he couldn’t tear his attention from the seductress. He felt himself stiffen behind his zipper, her hips pressing against him harder. 

The galloping was getting louder, but he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to anything but her. 

In a motion so fast, he didn’t see it happen, she pulled away from him and looked behind her. 

_ Did she just hiss? _

“Fuck!” she growled, turning her attention back to him. She gazed up at him again, and gently ran a finger down his cheek and under his chin, pushing her hips against his once more. He was frozen, like a deer in headlights. 

“Some other time, darling.” She purred. Then in a flash, she was gone.

Before his eyes could refocus on the now empty space in front of his face, four snarling, horse-sized wolves burst from the woods across the street. Charlie screamed, and fell backwards onto the asphalt, pushing himself back against the car. The ground shook as the wolves crossed the road in a full run, disappearing in the trees once they were across. The massive wolves were gone in seconds, and he heard the galloping getting farther away into the forest. They had never even acknowledged his presence.

Shaking, Charlie turned and peered over the hood of the car, gazing through the trees. The girl was nowhere to be seen, and the wolves were gone. The only evidence she had been there was the car, still left behind. He found his footing and stumbled back to his cruiser. Grabbing the handset to his radio, he put in a desperate message to dispatch.

“Dispatch, this is Chief Swan. I just saw those wolves and they are  _ enormous _ . There’s also a girl missing in the woods in the same area. We need some men with guns in the woods, now! __ Red hair, approximately 5’5’ and maybe 110 pounds. She’s wearing cut off shorts and a white top and is around 18 to 20 years of age. Last seen on Mora Road, heading towards town, right past the ranger station. I need info pulled on an Oregon plate, numbers TLD-1208. Over.” He hoped the fear in his mind hadn’t been apparent in his voice. 

Replacing the radio’s handset in its holder, he touched his hand to his cheek where the mystery girl had run her finger. It burned, and he was surprised to see bright red blood on his fingertips when he pulled them away.  _ What the hell? She barely touched me!  _ There was a thin gash running the length of his cheek.

He turned and sped down Mora towards Forks, still shaken, praying that Bella had made it home.


	9. Burn Another Page

**_ #NowPlaying – Epiphany by Staind _ **

I had always considered my human hygienic routine to be precisely that—human. I didn’t know that the warmth of a hot shower would be just as comforting as it was before, calming. That warm water pouring from the Cullens’ rainfall shower head in the massive walk-in was just as soothing in my new form as it was before. It was odd; I was mentally exhausted, but my body just wasn’t. Nothing seemed to expend physical energy, but my mind felt like a sore muscle. I tried to clear my head and focus only on the warmth. It helped to wash the cerebral fatigue away. 

I felt full and nearly sloshy with blood . It surprised me how easily hunting had  come to me . The burn in my throat still lingered, but it was only a shadow of the fires that had raged there before.  I took a moment to look down and study my new body.

Every flaw that I had once seen in it was gone. Every freckle, every discoloration was gone.  The curve of my hips, what I had once considered too angular and boney,  was now smooth and hourglass-shaped , but still slender and almost  _ graceful.  _ My movements didn’t look right; they were too smooth, like a  dancer’s.  All of my body hair, while still present , was  softer,  lighter in  color, and  barely there ; wisps of what it once was.  My breasts, while still small, were  rounded and firm .  The nails at the ends of my  slim fingers and toes reminded me of glass;  they shined  and contained not a single chip or flaw. My hair seemed thicker, fuller, and now hung nearly to my waist.

I knew that outwardly I was now what most people would call beautiful. But my mind still told me  not to believe it.  _ You _ _ only look like this b _ _ ecause of Victoria. It’s only because of her venom. _ _ You’ll never wash it off.  _

I noticed the thought of Victoria no longer elicited a reaction of fear inside of me. Instead,  it was a rage that  radiated from somewhere behind my belly button.  My fingers twitched. I’d never run from her again.  In fact, I would now be the hunter.

I was forming my plan in my head.  That’s where I’d go, that’s what I’d do. I’d follow Victoria.  It was the only logical solution. That way, no one else would have to put themselves in danger.  The wolves could stop hunting her, the Cullens wouldn’t have to feel obligated to protect anyone, and I could keep Charlie safe.

_ But what about  _ _ Charlie _ _? _

I considered how to deal with him.  I couldn’t be trusted  around humans as a newborn, I knew at least this of my new self. Jasper had been practicing close proximity to humans for years and still had his slip at my disastrous birthday party. Even if I could control it, there was no hiding the differences in my looks. He’d see my new pallor, notice the lack of imperfection in my skin. He’d have to think I was lost; I would be just another missing person.

But what about the Cullens? If they appeared back in town at the same time I disappeared,  Charlie would consider them the prime suspects. He would be liable to involve the FBI , and he’d be relentless in his investigation.  Did  the Cullens  intend to stay, or had they just  come to nurse me through my change? The very recent  memory  of the  pain sent a  shiver through me, despite the warmth of the water. 

If they didn’t intend to stay, Jacob could report to Charlie that I was lost.  Hikers went missing in these woods all the time, particularly as of late. It’d fit the narrative .  He already knew I  tended to wander in the forest, alone.  _ Oh, poor Charlie.  _ My eyes pricked uncomfortably.  He’d never stop looking for me. 

But if they intended to stay , I would need Edward’s help to  execute my plan. I would ask this of him; I had no choice.

I rinsed  my hair and turned off the water. Alice had left an outfit for me on the counter; jeans, and a  feminine cut t-shirt.  _ Thank you, Alice.  _ My  aversion to Alice’s sense of fashion had not faded and I was grateful she had provided me something  in my tastes.

I dried my body and considered how my  new hygienic routine should differ from before .  _ Do I still need deodorant?  _ __ The jeans Alice had left fit like a glove.  _ How does she do that?  _ I studied my body in the mirror and felt a sense of embarrassment at  how _ good _ the jeans looked on my curves. I t would take some getting used  to .  I wished for an over-sized shirt. 

I looked myself in the eyes of my reflection. They were red now, blazingly so, but I struggled to see  a  substantial difference there. I still saw hopelessness, brokenness, and defeat.  The more I looked , the more I could see, I was still nothing more than a little girl inside.  The sadness, the utter desolation inside of me ,  was still there. I couldn’t even hold a decent conversation in the forest with Edward... When I spoke, none of my words felt right ; they just got in my way. 

I ran a hairbrush through my hair , only because I knew I would soon be facing the others. I didn’t care how I looked; just wanted to dig myself a little hole and hide there. I discarded the decimated sundress in the empty bathroom trash can and made my way  downstairs .

My question of whether the Cullens intended to stay  was answered  before  I was halfway down the staircase. Esme flitted around the large open space, removing sheets from furniture and dusting , beaming at me as she flew. I could hear the shuffling of papers coming from what  I knew to be Carlisle’s  old  office. Alice  hung  high , clinging to  the glass that made up the entire  three-story back wall of the house, cleaning it. Jasper stood below her, handing  up supplies,  and  Emmett was setting up a large  flat-screen TV . Rosalie sat nearby  on a  chaise lounge, watching him with an annoyed  expression. Edward was nowhere to  be seen .  My heart sunk further. _ He doesn’t want anything to do with me. _ __ I had to yank out these seeds of hope that had begun to take root in my heart.

“Feeling better , dear?” Esme sang happily as she ran by me, carrying a stack of folded sheets.  Her positivity surprised me, after  so much negative. 

“ Uh, yeah, absolutely. Nothing better than a hot shower . Thank you so much.” I responded . My voice sounded flat to me,  lifeless.  Maybe I was dead now, just not physically. 

“See honey, it’s not so bad being a vampire. That beginning is a little rough, but I was very pleased to awaken into this life.”

I appreciated her motherly comforting more than I could express .  She had no way of knowing that it was raining in my head . She smiled warmly. 

“The dog is waiting on the porch , ” Rosalie said  coldly , breaking  the short - lived  peace. She didn’t look at me but studied her long nails intently .  “He says he’s not going anywhere until he talks to you.”

“Don’t feed him, or he’ll never leave , ” Emmett added with a chuckle.

_ Jacob _ _! _ Jacob was still here.  Maybe he  _ didn’t _ hate me now. I sprinted to the door and threw it open , slamming it against the wall, much too  hard . 

He was sitting on the stairs, already twisted around to look as I emerged through the door behind him. The expression on his face was of intense pain, but also relief.  I froze. 

“Oh , Bella…” he  choked. “I’m so sorry.” 

I stepped out of the door and closed it behind me . A tear rolled down his cheek as he stood . In an instant, I was across the porch , and I threw my arms around him.  I couldn’t stand to see him cry.  He returned the hug tightly , lifting  my feet  off the ground. A  large lump formed in my throat , and for the millionth time that day, my eyes stung with tears that would never come. 

“ Jake, none of this is your fault , ” I told him, pressing my face into his chest, his arms still wrapping me in his enormous, warm bear hug.  He  _ did  _ smell like a dog, but I didn’t care. He didn’t  loathe me , he was still here,  enfolding me in his arms ;  the only place I had felt safe for  six months.  G ratitude for that was  all I  felt . “I’m so glad you don’t hate me now . I’m so sorry. None of the was supposed to happen this way. You didn’t deserve this.” 

“ I’m so glad you’re still  _ you.  _ I could never hate you , Bella . _ Y _ _ ou _ didn’t do this.”  He breathed the words . His nose pressed into my still wet hair. I felt him kiss the top of my head . A tearless  sob escaped my lips as he sat me down on my feet , our arms still wrapped around each other. 

He pulled away from our embrace, leaving his hands still on my hips, to look down at me. He was still so warm; he was still my sun.  He studied my new features. “ Whoa. Creepy eyes, Bella.” 

“So, I’m not dead to you now?” I wiped at my eyes instinctively, though they were dry. I could tell he had to think about this. He sighed as he placed his hand over the spot where my heart once beat. He kept it there for a few seconds. The way he looked at that  area reminded me of how people look  into a casket at a wake. 

“Do you really think it’d change how I felt if you were?” he asked. I shook my head.  I didn’t deserve Jacob . He’d always  be  there for me. 

“I wish I had it in me to love you how you deserve to be loved , ” I said to him. I kept my voice low, but  I  strongly meant my words . Before,  maybe with more time, it could’ve been different . However, I had always doubted that. The wounds  on my heart and mind  were permanent before the venom; they were never going to heal.

“Bella...” he whispered. “Let's just get out of here. Let’s go away. I’ll get that redhead for you; she won’t touch Charlie.”

My mouth fell open at his sudden suggestion.

“Bella, you don’t  _ have  _ to be alone in this.” He spoke hushed, but with urgency.

“Jacob, what are you saying, you can’t just leave the pack.” I was perplexed, as though he was speaking in riddles.

“I don’t  _ care! _ I’m the rightful Alpha , Bella ! I’ll leave. It will be hard , b ut I’ll go.” The urgency was increasing, moving towards desperation. He moved his hands from my hips to my waist. 

“Jacob, I can’t... I can’t do that to you . You can’t throw away your life for me.” I shook my head as I said the words. I couldn’t do that to him. I had been so selfish already; I wouldn’t  take more from him .

He pulled me back into his massive arms  against his chest,  and his warmth radiated through me.  I didn’t feel cold, but it still felt so good. I knew I must feel like a block of ice to Jacob.

“Bella... I want you to know... ” he whispered these words, his face still pressed into my hair.  “ I don’t care that you’re changed. I can help you through this. I won’t ever stop phasing , and we can stay young together. I  don’t care , Bella. You’re still you ...  And  I still  lo -”

Our heads turned in sync as we heard the door on the side of the garage next to the house close. Edward had emerged .  I  pulled out of Jake’s arms .  I felt a shudder run through his body. 

“ If we need  someone to blame, speak of the devil , ” Jacob said, ice in his voice. Edward met his hateful gaze without waver ,  staring him  down  as he approached across the yard. 

“Always in the way.” He was practically growling. 

Edward said nothing. 

“Jake , stop.  No one needs to take any blame. Victoria wanted me , and it was just a matter of time before she got me. We knew Alice had seen me changed before  Edward and  me ever eve n met,” I couldn’t stand  to bring up our failed relationship. “It was a matter of time.” 

I watched Edward walk across the lawn,  his motions fluid,  his beauty  heartbreaking . His bronze hair fell messily over his forehead , and  I couldn’t tear my eyes off of the way the muscles  in his  chest moved under his shirt. There would never be anything more beautiful than Edward. 

He  passed us in silence as we stood together at the top of the stairs and disappeared into the house. I still  avoided  eye contact with him as he walked by, bathing the air in his  delicious scent.  My psyche couldn’t take it.  If I looked in his eyes, I would see all I had lost, and it was too much to bear.  The hole in my chest, the injury the venom  couldn’t heal , burned at the edges.  I  wrapped my arms around my chest and  turned to look at Jacob. I had no issue staring into his eyes.  They didn’t hurt so bad. 

“I need you to come in to the house… please. We have to formulate what we’re all going to tell Charlie, and I think I have an idea. ” I  explained .  “ But I’m going to need everyone’s help, everyone’s input. Including yours.  Will you do that for me?”

He glanced at the door behind me, his nose wrinkled.  “Back into that stink, huh?” he asked, sarcasm in his voice.  I was grateful  for  the bit of comic relief. 

“So , I stink now?” I asked , indignant. 

“You don’t want to know.” He responded.

“Pot, meet kettle. I have half a mind to forcibly flea dip you.” I responded, unwrapping my arms  from around  myself to playfully punch his shoulder.  He gasped and rubbed the impact site. 

“Ah, fucking Ow, Bella!” 

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” I would have to get used to my new strength.  I snickered and grabbed his hand,  leading  him through the door, back into the house. 

* * *

**_ #NowPlaying – Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin  _ **

As we entered the living room, the  others were already gathered , waiting for us. Edward sat  in a lounge chair, set further back from the rest, staring out of the glass wall.  Rosalie still lounged on the chaise , now  flipping  through an enormous  fashion  magazine and Emmett still sat on the floor in the middle of a mass of television wires. Alice sat on a loveseat alone, while Jasper stood near the edge of the room, a wary look on his face. Carlisle and Esme stood together, Carlisle’s arm wrapped supportively around her waist.

I looked at the floor as I sat down on the loveseat, next to Alice. I still didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. 

“Bella, I understand you have an idea for how to deal with your father?” Carlisle asked, breaking the silence.  I looked at the floor s as I sat down on the loveseat, next to Alice. I still didn’t enjoy being the center of attention. 

“We have to tell Charlie something. I’ve  been gone  for  more than two days.  He must be looking for me.” I started. 

“Actually , Bella… ” Jacob interrupted. “He may not be as frantic as you think right now. The day … all this… happened, Harry Clearwater had a heart attack.”

I gasped. “Oh my God, is he OK?”

“He … he didn’t make it Bells. Charlie has been at his place helping out . Sue is a wreck.” 

_ Oh, no…  _ In addition to losing his best friend, I would have to break  Charlie’s heart further with my plan. At least, with this plan, he’d know I was alive. 

Jacob  continued. “We told Charlie you were at my house with me.  I’ve stayed away from him , so he’d believe we were together.”

My gratitude threatened to bring more tearless sobs. 

“Thank you so much , Jacob. I owe you so much. I’m so sorry about Harry.” It pained me that I wouldn’t be there to help Charlie through this. He was going to think I was the most selfish person in the world, but it was better than him thinking his daughter was dead. 

“It’s nothing , Bella . I’d do anything for you.”

Edward shifted uncomfortably in his chair.  I went on. 

“Telling him I’m dead, or missing in whatever capacity,  _ is  _ an option . However, there are some flaws in  that  scenario , especially with you all being back in town. If I were to just disappear, Charlie would be all over you.”

“You’re correct , Bella. He would most certainly involve us, especially me.” Carlisle chimed in. “I’ve considered Charlie a dear friend  throughout the time we’ve been in  Forks , but I don’t believe he’d afford Edward the same kind thoughts.”

Edward  shifted again in his seat. 

“Right,” I agreed. “So, we need to make an excuse that  gives a reason why I am gone, and that dispels suspicions of your… shall we say,  _ unlawful  _ involvement ? And I think I’ve got it.” They all listened intently.  My heart was still but should have been pounding. Edward didn’t want to be near me, and it was embarrassing to propose this idea. 

“We tell him that you’ve returned, for whatever reason. Maybe Esme didn’t like the big city. Whatever. That part doesn’t matter. But that when you returned… Edward and I ran away together.” 

Edward was  now  staring a hole through me, and  the room was silent as everyone considered  this plan.  Jacob looked confused. 

“Bella, that is perfect.”  Said Esme.

“Genius.” Agreed Carlisle. “ We  can most  definitely play the role of the disappointed  parents , along with Charlie . And it would spare him the pain of mourning your death.”

“It would give me an excuse to be gone, long enough that  maybe if I were to see him again, I could control my  thirst , and the differences in my appearance wouldn’t  seem  so sudden , ” I explained.  “No one would doubt that I would have done it , t hat I would take off with…” I nodded my head in Edward’s direction.

“This would also afford you the ability to call him, as proof  you’re  safe. I’d rather have him mad than grieving.” Esme pointed out. 

“Exactly.” I  agreed. “But… this would require me to  ask a favor of you, Edward,” I said, turning in his direction, always avoiding his eyes.  “If you were to be seen in town, the jig would he up.” 

Rosalie interrupted the conversation, laughing. 

“Wow, you have a lot of nerve , Bella.  You ask a lot of us.”

“ Rosalie, shut up!” Edward roared from his chair.

Rosalie glared at him as she swung her perfect legs off the chaise and stood. 

“I’m done with this. I’m going to the garage. The  M3 needs a  tune-up anyway.” She left the room, swinging her hips as she walked. It did not escape my notice that Jacob’s eyes  followed her as she left the room .

Carlisle broke the silence that lingered after her departure, and Jacob’s eyes snapped back to the group, as though he had been distracted.  “I believe this idea will work well , Bella.  Edward,  what are  your thoughts?”

All eyes shifted towards Edward, but I looked at the floor. 

The silence before he spoke was  crushing. 

“I can’t  _ believe  _ you’re asking me this.” He said after a  moment’s thought. 

He was rejecting the idea. His disgust with me was so great that even the idea of a  fictitious union was too much for him  to bear.  Shame crashed over me. Had they been able, my cheeks would have blazed red with embarrassment. Some part of my mind wondered if I would ever stop noticing the absence of my human responses. 

“And then what, Bella?  You’re just going to leave, be gone, on your own? Never see anyone you know ? Never  see any of us again?  _ Would you like that, Bella? _ ” Edward  continued , his voice growing in volume as his anger flared. 

“Yes! I promise I will leave you alone .” I assured him. I hoped it would dissuade some of his anger . I wasn’t asking him to have any involvement with me, just to perpetuate the lie.  “ I’m going to hunt Victoria, and I’ll protect Charlie. I promise none of you will have to carry any burden, other than keeping up the lie. This is all I’ll ask of you, although I know it’s asking a lot.  I’ll leave you alone after this , I promise.”  I could give him this .  I would let him go.  “But I don’t know what else to do… ”

Jacob interrupted, “Bella, you don’t have to —,”

But again, Edward cut him off. If looks could kill, Edward would have been dead. 

“Are you an idiot , Bella?”  Edward roared, sta nding up out of the chair. 

_ Apparently.  _

“You have the absolute  _ audacity _ to ask this favor of me, to ask my family this favor,  when you won’t even  _ look at me?” _ __ he bellowed. 

Jake stood up. “Stop fucking screaming at her!”  Edward paid him no mind. 

I was confused, and his shouting was scaring me.  _ What does he want from me? _ I pulled my legs off the floor, bringing my knees to my chest, and hid my face. I wanted to die. Even in immortality, I still felt so stupid. 

I heard  the movement of air. Edward  was across the room in half a second. Forcefully, he put his hand under my chin and pulled my face upward towards his.  His fingers dug into my jaw. I squeezed my eyes closed. 

“Look at me, Bella!”

_ I can’t _ _ , _ _ Edward _ _. Your _ _ light is too  _ _ bright. _ __

I  turned my head, trying to escape his grip on my chin. I pushed and clawed at his hand  and pressed myself against the back of the couch, trying to break his  grip on my jaw. 

He wrenched my face back towards him , forcing me to face him . 

“ _ Get the hell off her! _ ” Jacob was at his side,  helping me to try and break his grasp. I couldn’t control my defensive instincts, and I tried viciously to break free. I heard a blow hit the back of Edward’s head with a thud.

“ _ Stop it! Stop it! _ ” Alice screamed from somewhere at my side.  I heard the whooshing of the air as the others moved quickly , trying to  tear Edward off of me.  More thuds. 

Inside of me, something was just about to break. 

“Bella,  _ fucking look at me!”  _ Edward screamed, inches  from my face.  He no longer sounded enraged; he was begging.  Sore and sick, I  opened my eyes and met his. 

The world fell out from under me .  The hole in my chest tore open  and burned  with every bit of the intensity of the  fires of the change . I  cried out at the pain .

But  my cry was cut short when Edward’s mouth crashed hungrily into mine.


	10. Pink Ribbon Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No infringement intended, Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer, yada yada… 
> 
> Thanks again to Marie S Cullen for all of her help! Look her up, she’s a talented writer! 
> 
> Look me up on FB under Seygen Belial for updates and teasers!

**_ #NowPlaying - Today by The Smashing Pumpkins _ **

**EPOV**

The minds of my family  were stunned into silence , but  Jacob’s mind roared.  It’s an odd thing to hear , someone’s heart break  in their head . His thoughts  wailed with grief at our kiss.  While this fact registered in the back of my mind, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything other than the taste of  Bella’s lips,  frenzied in their movements  against mine,  her s weet  but unnecessary breath coming in gasps. I felt her legs  clamp ed around my waist, her hands gripping fistfuls  of my hair, threatening to pull it out  at the roots  as she pressed my face to hers.  I stood with her still  locked around me, pulling her off the loveseat,  never breaking our kiss . The ecstasy was all-encompassing . Blindly, I ran out of the back door with her still in my arms . I heard the glass in the door shatter as it slammed  into the wall. I wore her legs like a belt as I moved.

I was over the river in  seconds , plowing through the forest, desperate to be alone with her.  I agonizingly broke our kiss to see where I was going, but her lips immediately found my neck, kissing and biting  fervently .  Her  fingernails dug into  the skin  of my back a s she clung to  me . Her  legs still encircled my waist, tight enough  almost to hurt ,  but still, I didn’t care. She could’ve ground my body into dust and I  wouldn’t have felt close enough to her.

I didn’t stop running until my mind was silent , the thoughts of my family and the dog far enough away that I could no longer hear them ,  but  I couldn’t bear a step further . I slammed  Bella up against  an enormous tree, shaking birds from  their  roosts  a hundred feet above.  I was grateful that she was no longer breakable because the  restraint  to  be gentle with her did not exist within me now. 

I can’t even say how or where my shirt came off, but it was gone . I leaned my head back and moaned  as  she showered my neck and chest with biting kisses.  I  pushed her head back against the tree  again as I kissed her, painfully hard , tasting her mouth, relishing all that she was. I would never need oxygen, but  I physically  _ needed _ her. I  had her in my arms again and nothing else existed. I  forgot everything, all the pain, whether we were vampires or human, right or wrong; it didn’t matter. We were together  in this moment ,  and that was all  that was real .

She pulled her mouth away from me, but  my lips  followed her,  raining kisses along the hollows of her collarbone, neck , and jawline. Her breathing was ragged.

“Why are you doing this to m e? ”  S he  gasped as she leaned  her head  against the tree . 

I froze.  _ What?  _

“What Bella love, what’s wrong?”  Was this not the perfect moment of heaven I thought it was?  _ Had I hurt her?  _

“You’re making me live this dream, and then it’s going to disappear.”  She looked back into my eyes,  and  I into hers, wishing for the thousandth time that I could read her thoughts. 

“I’m so… confused … ”  S he whispered. 

“Bella,  love, you’ve  been so hesitant, so careful. You wouldn’t even meet my eyes .. .”  I still had not relinquished my lock on hers .  The deprivation was too fresh , and I wouldn’t let go now that I had  her gaze back. I’d burn my eyes out first.  But why was she questioning this moment? 

“Why?  Am I too late ? H ave I hurt you too much?” I tried to make sense of why she couldn’t remember, why she couldn’t feel how much we loved each other.  Did she not feel this electric current running between us?  Her every action  was bruised and restrained. 

“Is it because you have moved on as I meant for you to?  Have you fallen in love with the wolf boy? I w on't contest your decision.  So, don't try to spare my feelings . Tell  me no w, Bella, please…” I whispered, searching her eyes for an answer.  I would heal the  wounds I had  put  on her heart . “ Could you still love me, after everything I've done to you? Can you?"  I would beg if I had to.  I would try so hard to cleanse these regrets. 

She looked at me, shock and hurt playing across her features.

“ Jacob? No, no… it’s nothing like that.”

_ Oh, thank God.  _

_ “ _ Jacob  is a dear friend and I care for  him... But  Edward … No… it’s you. It’s always  been  _ you _ .”

I  crashed my lips against hers again, tasting her, sucking in every ounce of the love I knew she had for me , wallowing in it, drowning happily. She still loved  me, and my gratitude felt too large for my heart to contain. 

“I love you so much. I will never leave you again, I swear  it .” This was a  solemn vow. 

“Don’t promise me anything, please. I can’t let myself hope again. It will kill me if  it comes to nothing.” I could hear the  intense sadness in her words, the utter hopelessness .  “You said… you said you don’t want me , Edward. ” 

Again, I  froze in horror.  _ What have I done? _ __ __ It dawned on me… 

She had believe d me.  The horrible, wretched lie that I had told her in the forest, the  absolute fallacy that I had forced through my lips .  Bella believed it.  She  honestly didn’t know how much I loved  her; she didn’t understand that I would not live in a world where she didn’t exist.

“Bella… I lied. I had to.  You weren't going to let  go, I c ould see that. I hoped that … if you thought I'd moved on, so would you."

“Like you never existed…”  S he whispered. Her breath made my head spin. 

" Yes.. . I had to Bella. My world was so dangerous for you. Look what’s happened,  despite my efforts! All I wanted, all I ever wanted was for you to have a happy,  _ normal  _ life.  I didn’t want to be the reason your heart stopped beating. ”

My words came quickly, with urgency.

“ But I never imagined it would be so easy to  convince you I didn’t love you. How could you believe me? After all the thousand times I've told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me? ” 

She stared at me in disbelief.  She stroked the side of my face gently, and I leaned my cheek into her  soft p alm. 

“No… You’re going to disappear. This is all a dream…”  Bella’s voice  broke  as she spoke.

I shook her shoulder  as though I was attempting to wake her .  Our bodies were still pressed together, her back against the tree . 

“Bella!  I'm here, and I love you. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I was thinking of you, seeing your face in my mind every second that I was away. When I told you that I didn't want you, it was the very blackest kind of blasphemy ." Now that  she  was right in front of me,  I couldn’t stop touching her face. 

She shook her  head and closed her eyes. 

"You don't believe me, do you?"  I whispered, taking her face  between my hands , willing her to look at me again. I couldn’t bear  being deprived  of her eyes . "Why can you believe the lie, but not the truth?"

" Because… ” She started, instinctively  wiping at her dry eyes. “It  never made sense for you to love me .”

My heart broke into a million little pieces. She’d never  understood what she was . Not just to me, to the world . How special she was. How different from the rest of her kind she had been as a human. Even now,  with  her beautiful heart frozen forever in her chest, I knew there wasn’t an immortal in this world that could compare to her. 

“Bella…  please…  if you’ll  let me… I’ll spend eternity proving you wrong.”  Now it was my turn to choke on dry sobs.  I’d never  let her go again . I needed her too much. Damn the consequences, especially now. _ Please _ _ , _ _ Bella _ _ , _ _ love, please believe me.  _

Her breath hitched with  a repressed cry. She just nodded as though she could n’t  speak and pulled my lips back to hers.  There had never been a pleasure nor rapture as great .  Not even the taste of her sweet blood as I pulled James’s venom from her flesh  had been as pleasurable as her willing kiss was now. How I had longed for it during the lonely months I had forced  our separation.  The terrible schism that I had forced upon us both,  for nothing .  My attempts to keep her heart beating had failed . _ I should’ve known better than to bet against Alice.  _ Yet  somehow, here in my arms , I still had my Bella. And she was still  _ her.  _ She still wanted me.  I knew her thirst must be burning hot inside of her throat, but her yearning for me was at least as strong. 

“I love you, Edward.” She spoke into my open mouth. 

“And I, you, my sweet , perfect , Bella.”

“Please don’t leave me again.” She breathed. 

“Never , ” I answered.  In  all my years, not a single word  had ever held  more weight than that one … until  my next. 

“Stay with me , Edward, please.” She half moaned between kisses. 

“Always.”

* * *

** JPOV **

**_ #NowPlaying Chalk Outline by Three Days Grace _ **

Prince Leech was going to tear her head off.  I could see his fingers digging into her small chin . Her eyes squeezed shut as she struggled to free her face from his grasp.  I was on him in an instant. I felt  a knuckle break  as my fist impacted the back of his skull.  The rest of the vampires had surrounded us, and the littlest vampire was screaming on the loveseat at Bella’s side.  This was insane.  _ The Best of Jerry Springer, Domestic Violence _ _ , Undead Edition.  _

“Get the hell off of her!” I roared at him,  _ demanded  _ it. I couldn’t get him to release his clutch on her. 

_ “Bella _ _ , _ _ fucking look at me!” _ he bellowed  into her face.  I felt another finger snap as I landed another blow into the back of his  big ugly head . I could feel the others trying to pull me away, but they were like gnats buzzing around me; I hardly paid  attention. 

I raised my  fist to land another  hit ,  my body shivering. Another couple of seconds and I would explode into a wolf and leave this pretty white living room in  ruins. 

My  fist stopped,  halfway through its third descent towards Edward’s head.  I froze.  Where there had been only his  hair before, Bella’s hands were now  entwined, balled into tight fistfuls of his hair.  He stood, knocking me back . He lifted her off the couch ,  her  clinging to  his body , her arms and legs wrapped around him . They were kissing.  Not just kissing, they were  full-on sucking each other’s faces off.  _ What the hell just happened?  _

I hadn’t even had a chance to show her. How perfect we would have been. It would have been as  natural as breathing with me.  None of this would’ve happened if she had just  _ stayed  _ with me.  Why couldn’t she see that? She’d never have had to change for me. And even now, even though her silent heart still belonged to him, even though I’d never be able to make her cheeks flush again, even though her body was stone and cold as ice, I mourned for  her.  I’d accept her in whatever form she was, because of  _ who  _ she was , but I was rejected . T his was clear and being rubbed in my face . I couldn’t shake the perfect image of him she had  out of her head.  He had killed her ; the second he decided to involve her in this world, he killed her.  He had left her there in the woods like a chalk outline on the sidewalk waiting for the rain to wash her away. 

Bella still clinging to him,  Edward shattered the door as he  tore out of the back, carrying her away into the woods. 

And just like that, she was  gone, and the room was silent.  There was nothing left  to say anyway. The  five remaining sets of eyes watched me as I left out of the broken door. 

I stormed down the stairs, taking off  in a full run  towards the woods. I had to get out of there. Tears blurred my vision and streamed down my face.

_ Oh, Bella… You’ll be sorry, baby. Someday.  _

I phased in a  shower of shredded clothing where the yard met the  forest . 

* * *

**_ #NowPlaying – For Whom t _ ** **_ he Bell Tolls – Metallica _ **

_ Damn it!  _ Charlie slammed the phone back into its cradle.  Ten times in the past twenty minutes he had  dialed the Black’s  number , and ten times , the answering machine had picked up . It made sense for Billy to still be at Sue’s, but Bella and Jacob were nowhere to be found. 

If it weren’t for the strange events of  this afternoon, he wouldn’t have been stressing.  Charlie liked the idea of Jacob and Bella together, and because of this, he afforded her  perhaps  _ too _ much leniency when it came to her  time with him .  Jacob had helped her through her  breakup with the Cullen boy . He had  certainly done a better job of it than Charlie had felt he had done himself . 

The Oregon plates  that Charlie had called into dispatch came back as a stolen vehicle.  A wrecker had been sent out to collect it, and the boys had collected what evidence they could find inside.  There were currently boots on the ground outside the campgrounds and around James Pond in the forest along Mora, where Charlie had seen the girl.  They hadn’t found so much as a track from wolf nor girl. It was as if she and they had just disappeared.  It concerned him; people would start to  think he was getting rusty, less trustworthy with age. 

But no, she  _ had _ been there, and  then she was gone as if she had never existed. But she did, the long gash down his cheek a stinging reminder.  The memory of her body against his was still fresh.  He felt his cheeks grow warm and he cleared his throat. 

Jake or no Jake, Charlie would have felt much better with Bella home due to the strange events of the day.  He was emotionally drained, and while he wasn’t one to verbally express these types of things, it would have been  comforting to hear her moving around the house. 

He had to remind himself, Bells was  eighteen and needed her freedom. She was with Jake, and he was a good kid; good for  _ her.  _ He was c ertainly better than Dr.  Cullen’s  boy.  Charlie couldn’t believe that such a good man could raise such an asshole.  She had done more healing in the last two months she had spent hanging out with Billy’s boy that in the four months before  that she had spent in her depression. Poor kid had practically been catatonic, only doing what it took to live.  It had been one of the most helpless  times Charlie had ever  felt , second only to when Renee had left him. 

He sat down on the couch with a cold  beer and flipped on  a baseball game. He’d give her till tomorrow. If he hadn’t heard from her by tomorrow , he’d take a drive back out to La Push.  _ Gonna have to get that  _ _ kid _ _ a cell phone.  _ He  ran his fingers  along the gash on his cheek. It felt hot and inflamed.  He  shivered and wondered what had become of the girl. Not hide nor hair of either wolf  or human had been found . Besides,  why was a young girl like that driving a stolen car? _ She must be in some kind of trouble,  _ he reasoned.  He focused his attention on the TV,  trying to push the thoughts from his head. 

At the bottom of the seventh, near the end of his third tallboy, Charlie was feeling much better about things. Those wolves couldn’t have been as huge as he was remembering ; the fear must be altering his memory. And the girl ! O f course , the girl disappeared, she  _ was _ driving a stolen car , and he  _ was _ a cop.  She must’ve scratched  him; he was distracted…  he convinced himself he just hadn’t noticed. 

The toll of the  door bell nearly startled Charlie out of his skin.  _ Who could that be?  _ He  composed himself and made his way across the room towards the front door. 


	11. Determined

**_#NowPlaying – Hurt by Johnny Cash_ **

Charlie raced to the door. His experience as an officer told him that unexpected late-night visitors rarely heralded good news. He flipped on the porch light and flung the front door open. The roar of the rain that heavily fell filled the small foyer, drowning out the sound of Charlie’s gasp.

“Good evening Charlie, how are you?” He froze as Carlisle Cullen greeted him from under the yellow glow of the porch light.

Hadn’t these people moved away six months ago? Why was Dr. Cullen standing on his doorstep, uninvited, at this time in the evening? Weren’t they supposed to be 1200 miles away in Los Angeles? Bella’s absence over the past couple of days suddenly seemed much more concerning. If Carlisle was back, did that mean…?

“Where’s Bella?” Charlie asked curtly, taking a step closer to Carlisle. He wasn’t a timid man, but something inside of him felt a surge of fear at the thought of challenging the young doctor. One step was all he took.

“May I come in? It’s damp out here.” Carlisle asked politely, his face grave. Charlie had been right; Carlisle was not bringing good news. As the initial shock of finding Dr. Cullen standing on his porch in the rain waned, he remembered his manners.

“Yes, yes. Absolutely, please.” Charlie invited, stepping aside and waving Carlisle through the door. He stepped through the thresh hold, and Charlie lead him to the yellow kitchen.

“Charlie, you seem to be under no pretenses that I’m here for a casual visit,” Carlisle explained, turning to face Charlie, who stood leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I have to admit that I’m a bit surprised to have you drop by unannounced. I was under the impression you had taken a position in LA.” Charlie responded, wondering why the talented doctor would be visiting Forks. The Cullen’s didn’t have any remaining family here that Charlie knew of. The fear that was putting his stomach intensified. It must have something to do with Bella.

“Well, as it turns out, life in the big city wasn’t making Esme happy. She was positively beside herself with revulsion. Forks Hospital was very gracious to accept me back on such short notice.”

He knew it. They _were_ back, and Bella was off with _him._

“Carlisle, where is Bella? I haven’t seen her in two days, you say you’re back. Is she with your boy? Cut to the chase, what is this about?”

Carlisle sighed and reached into the pocket of his long raincoat. He handed Charlie a crumpled note, written on stationery he didn’t recognize.

_Dad,_

_I’m sorry to do this to you. Edward and I have decided that we want to be together. We know you, nor his family, are willing to accept our relationship. We cannot repair the broken thoughts we know both of our families have about us with words, so we will show you. We are safe. We are happy. We are 18 and well within our rights. We will start our lives together, and we will show you all; we are meant to be together_ _. One day, when your anger has faded, you will see. Please tell Renee I love her. I’m sorry that I let you down. I’m sorry that I made you hurt_ _. I will call you when this all blows over._

_Love,_

_Bella_

Charlie wadded the paper tightly into his fist as hot tears welled in his eyes.

“Carlisle… are you here telling me that those two have run off together?” he choked, holding back his tears. He didn’t want to seem like a powder puff in front of the young doctor. “I thought he dumped her?”

“That seems to be the case, Charlie. Edwards is gone. He left Esme and me a similar note. They seem to have… reconciled.” Carlisle responded, eyes on the floor. “I’m no more pleased with this than you are.”

The reality of the past two days hit Charlie like a wrecking ball. Everyone he knew went away, in the end. He felt the way he had when Renee had walked out, when Bella screamed the same words at him a few months ago as she had run off to Phoenix and had her accident. First, Harry, then the red-headed girl, and now this. He felt Carlisle guide him to a kitchen chair. Elbows on the table, he held his head in his hands and sat in stunned silence. The doctor’s hand rested comfortingly on his shoulder. He dropped his hands to the table and looked at Carlisle’s face.

“What are they doing for money? Cut off his money!”

“Charlie, if I do that, they’ll be penniless and hungry. At least with the cards, we can tra… Charlie?” Carlisle stopped short in his response, his voice colored with concern.

“What?” Charlie asked, perplexed. Carlisle didn’t immediately respond.

“ _What?”_ he pressed.

“What happened to your cheek?”

* * *

**_JPOV_ **

**_#NowPlaying – Determined – Mudvayne_ **

“I can’t believe she got that close to Charlie. Okay, what’s done is done. We have to get our heads back in this. Her first target is now indestructible.” Sam Uley spoke strategically.

“Why are we even still in this?” Leah Clearwater spat.

Leah and her younger brother Seth were the newest members of the pack. It pained Leah to be in this house. Sam had left her when he imprinted on Emily, and there were clearly still hard feelings. Her mood was sullied because of it. “Isn’t it their problem now?”

Most of the pack was gathered around Emily and Sam’s kitchen table. There was a quickly dwindling mountain of scrambled eggs, muffins, and bacon in the middle.

“Leah, our job is to protect,” I replied through clenched teeth.

“No, our job is to protect the _tribe_. It doesn’t seem like the red-headed leech wants any beef with _us_. It’s the Cullens she’s after.” Leah retorted.

“And what about Charlie, Leah? Just let him get killed, or turned like Bella?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Let Bella protect him!” Leah now yelled, slamming her hand into the wall she stood near.

“Enough!” Sam interrupted, abruptly ending the dispute. “Until we get to the redhead, we will continue our watches.”

I sat back in my chair, satisfied, and stuffed three pieces of bacon in my mouth at once. The Alpha had spoken, and besides, Bella probably couldn’t be within a football field of a human without going into a feeding frenzy, it made sense to keep her away, for us to do the watches. The bloodsuckers were the whole reason she was here; this was all their fault from the beginning. How could they be trusted to snuff out the problem?

Leah laughed out loud. “Whatever. Let’s all just pretend this isn’t some pathetic attempt for Jacob to win Bella back from the dead guy.”

Leah narrowly dodged the large blueberry muffin I chucked across the room at her. She was out of the door and gone without goodbyes.

Moments later, Paul, Jared, Quil, and Embry entered the small kitchen, crouching as they stepped through the doorway. Sam and I were instantly alarmed.

“Is Charlie unprotected?” I asked, rising from my chair at the table. They were supposed to be in Forks.

“Chill out, Jake. He went to work, and the leeches are doing details as well. They agreed to keep watch through breakfast.” Quil assured us, taking place at the table and piling his plate high.

So we were working with these demons now?

“How do you know that?”

“Kind of hard to ignore the stink. Plus, we talked with the doctor leech. They’re on it too. The little black-haired one can’t see his future when we are around. I guess we block her future-vision somehow.” Paul explained, shrugging while stacking a plate with eggs and bacon. “They didn’t know that we chased her away from Charlie. They had no idea she had gotten that close.”

The Cullens didn’t seem to know what they were dealing with. It unsettled me to leave Charlie completely without wolf protection. But, I knew that security was just step one. We needed to do more.

“So, what are we going to do? Just wait until she shows up again?” I asked, wondering what our next move was. Defense was all well and good, but I was ready for an offensive plan.

“We’ll not go looking for trouble.” Sam mandated.

“But doesn’t it make more sense to sniff out the problem and cut it off before it gets too close? She got through us once-“

“That was an accident. There were special circumstances.” Sam interrupted. “Plus, apparently, the Cullens are trying to clean up the mess as well.”

It didn’t make sense to me to just wait for her to come to us. What if she went after others that had been close to Bella? Now that I knew her motivations, who knew what the redhead leech might do? Start picking off Bella’s friends? We were trusting these _things_ now? I shivered despite the warm kitchen.

I looked around the table, eyeing Sam closely. While he played the role of the Alpha, we all knew that I was the rightful heir to that title. Whenever Sam and I disagreed, the knowledge of this flared inside of me, reminding me that I was not meant to follow orders. After all, I didn’t want any more than what I deserved…

I was sure of one thing. _I_ would not sit idly by and wait for an attack. _I_ was determined. Regardless of whether Sam liked it or not, _I_ would handle this nuisance.

I did my best to shut the little voice of hope that spoke deep inside of my mind. The voice whispered that maybe Leah was on to something. That little voice wondered… maybe, maybe if I could keep Bella’s father safe…

They say the hope spring is eternal, I guess.

* * *

**_BPOV_ **

_I should be in the woods hunting for Victoria’s scent. I should be in a bloodthirsty craze. Shouldn’t I? I shouldn’t be able to focus on how my body is curled into Edward’s, on the fact he’s back, and we’re together…_

I wasn’t able to go along with Carlisle, to listen as he broke the news of our fake disappearance. This was relieving only in that I didn’t have to listen or see as Carlisle metaphorically ripped Charlie’s heart out, days after his best friend had passed away. It bothered me more, however, that I couldn’t be trusted enough around humans even to protect my father from Victoria. I was anxious to begin my hunt for her. My fingers itched with anticipation, but once again, the truth that vampire kind was easily distracted rang loud and clear. Edward’s embrace was the ultimate distraction.

The others had promised to take shifts patrolling the perimeter around Charlie’s house. Carlisle was gone, delivering the false story to Charlie. Alice and Jasper, along with Emmett, were running the perimeter, looking for any sign that Victoria had been near. Alice was still only picking up fuzzy visions of her. They faded in and out. I knew Charlie was safe with them nearby. Victoria was too big of a coward to run towards trouble; the second anything opposed her, she’d run.

Esme stayed behind and was humming in another room, the sound of her pencils on rough parchment as she sketched, reaching my sensitive ears from rooms away. Rosalie had disappeared to the garage hours ago before Edward had taken me suddenly and forcefully to be alone with him in the woods. She seemed utterly nonplussed about Charlie’s safety, though I was sure she had heard the news from the garage.

Never had I came close to feeling such emotional extremes in one day. Anger, sadness, and now, sheer and utter bliss. Was it selfish that Charlie’s pain was so much less in my mind than the pure joy that Edward still loved me? Charlie’s blow, after all, _had_ been cushioned; he would think of me as an irresponsible and selfish teenager, but that was better than him thinking me dead. I didn’t want to focus on that. All that I wanted to feel was the joy that Edward still wanted me. That he would be mine and that I would be his forever. Was this real? I was his equal now. Maybe I was _finally_ good enough for him. The joy felt as though it was too much for my chest to contain. He held me on his lap, his arms wrapped around me, in the empty white living room. A fire roared in the fireplace, it’s warmth pleasant, albeit unnecessary. We kissed sporadically as the silent moments passed in each other’s arms. I was soaking in, savoring, every second, making up for every time I had wanted to kiss him in the past six months but couldn’t.

“I love you so much, my Bella…” he breathed.

I curled into his chest and inhaled his honeyed scent.

“And I y—"

I had never thought it possible to surprise a vampire. When the colossal television that Emmett set up and mounted to the wall in the living room earlier today came to life without prompt, interrupting my reply, Edward and I both _jumped._

“What the hell?” Edward asked, perplexed, as the black screen displayed a spinning circular emblem and the word _Loading_. I looked around for the remote. It seemed unlikely, but had we sat on it? We stood from the love seat we had been nestled on to look for the device.

We both started again as the black screen changed, and my screams emanated from the set at full blast volume. Emmett’s surround sound made the horrible shrieks bounce off the walls, coming at us from all sides. It would’ve been deafening to human ears. The screen displayed the familiar seaside cave, and a ground-level view of the side of my face, eyes slammed shut and mouth open, screaming like a caged animal. Victoria’s childlike giggles and the crunching of my bones were audible as well. _Strange, I didn’t hear anything except our screams._ Despite the commotion, I heard Esme’s pencil drop from her hand to the hardwood of her desk.

Edward’s face paled as he stared in utter horror as the video

Rage burned in my chest, almost as hot as the thirst had burned before I had fed. I flew to the television and tore the cords from the wall. The entire electrical outlet and a sizable chunk of drywall came out with the various cables.

Once again, save for the fire’s crackle, the room was silent. Esme appeared in the entryway to the living room, Rosalie materializing seconds later.

“What the hell was that?” Rosalie asked, looking at the mass of cords and drywall hanging from my clenched fist.

I was by no means a technical person. How was this possible? Did Victoria hack our Wi-Fi connection somehow? Had she tampered with the TV? I had heard stories of internet hackers; had Victoria learned this trade? Or was someone else doing it for her? In any event, it was clear; she was toying with us now.

Again, I was easily distracted. The warmth and joy I had felt a second ago had seared away into raw hatred and rage. No more time could be spent wallowing in the joy of my reunion with my love.

I turned toward Edward, staring intently into his eyes. My gaze conveyed the forceful gravity of what I was about to say. I had reached a breaking point. I had _had_ it with this woman.

“Edward, I need you to teach me to fight Victoria. _Now._ ”


	12. Shell Shocked

** Now Playing – On the Hunt by Lynyrd Skynyrd **

** JPOV **

The entire pack and our families gathered around the large bonfire. The leaches were on patrol tonight. The pack had the evening off; most of us were enjoying the night free from the protection detail. Food was plentiful and being passed around. Many of the elders were a beer or two (or four) into a six-pack, and everyone seemed jovial for the moment. 

Except me. 

Why were we doing this? Why waste time? I understood the value of a good time, but this felt premature—our work undone. It was one single vampire that was causing all of this trouble. I didn’t understand the need for all the strategy, all of the thoughtful planning. Did we need that when we took out the French-fried leech that almost killed Bella? No. We attacked, and we won. Why were we treating this one any differently? Because she was a little extra slippery? Because Bella was a vampire now? The easy atmosphere of the evening was disturbing to me. 

It was because they weren’t as worried. It wasn’t their family the redhead was after. It wasn’t the girl they loved that had been drained by a blood-drinking demon. 

This wasn’t over yet. I was a mythical creature too, right? I could accept Bella as she was. This was what I reasoned. Though her heart no longer beat, I still yearned for her. I imagined her curled into Edward's stone body with a shudder. I didn’t care what she was; there was still a chance. She wouldn’t age, and I didn’t have to either. The certainty of this in my mind and heart smoldered like the coals in the center of the great roaring fire. It wasn’t too late. I could still make her love me, and I could still make her safe. Her, and the people that mattered to her most. 

Sam was in disgustingly a lighthearted mood. 

“Jake, stop worrying. Let the leeches clean up their own mess for the evening. Their little seer will know if anything is going to happen. We’ll go back out at first light. Charlie Swan is safe, and we don’t have to worry about Bella anymore.”

Easy for him to say. Bella’s change had quelled most of his worries; they were prepared to handle the redhead of she crossed into her territory, but no one seems to be inclined to seek her out. They didn’t seem to see that it wasn’t only Bella in danger. She’d always be hunting somewhere. Were we suddenly turning a blind eye to anyone that wasn’t being hunted in our area? I harrumphed in response to him but said nothing. He shook his head and walked away to reclaim his place next to Emily. He had his girl, so of course, he didn’t care as much as I did. 

I watched as the party died down. Couples split off on their own and the fire was dying down. I could hear the waves break against the shore in the distance to the west. 

Maybe I could run some trails on my own tonight. Just to see if the redhead was near. They’d scold me in advance, but if I got her, I’d be praised. If I said nothing, I could circumvent Sam’s orders. He said I couldn’t hunt her, but never ordered that I couldn’t run the forest. If I did this, then I would know I had done everything I could. I would’ve made every effort to give Bella what she didn’t even know she needed. 

I handed Billy another beer and eyed his lowering eyelids. Another beer or two and he’d be down for the count. 

I would go when everyone was gone. 

* * *

** BPOV **

** Now Playin ** ** g—Eyes of the Insane by Slayer **

We gathered in the clearing that I instantly recognized as the same clearing that I had watched the Cullen’s play baseball in on the fateful evening that James had decided to make me the object of his hunt. I had followed Edward, Alice, and Jasper into this clearing unknowing of exactly where we were heading, and it surprised me to find myself there. The magnitude in which things had changed since the last time I stood here astonished me. Was I even the same person?

I answered the question myself in my head, with a resounding No. Nothing was the same and nothing ever would be, ever again. 

Edward was the first to speak.

“Bella, Jasper has great experience when it comes to combat. He will teach you how Victoria may fight, ways to defeat one of our kind. Then, you’ll be able to apply this to your own style, as it develops.”

I gaze again at Jasper, his silver scars glinting in the moonlight. How many had tried to take him down and failed? I was pleased to have him as a teacher. 

“Victoria seems to have a gift of evasion.” Jasper chimed in, “the first obstacle is simply catching her.” He walked with purpose towards the center of the clearing. “Ok, Edward. Try and catch me.”

And then, Jasper was a blur as Edward charged him like a cougar, grinning while he snarled. Edward was impossibly quick, but so was Jasper. It looked like Jasper had no more substance than a ghost -- any time it seemed Edward’s hands had him for sure, his fingers clenched around nothing but the air. Then, he froze. 

Jasper had him from behind, his teeth an inch from his throat. Edward cursed under his breath.

“Again,” Edward insisted, his grin gone.

“No, I want to try.” I interrupted. They both looked at me in surprise. “I’m a doer, more than a watcher.” In truth, I just wanted to be able to do something with the energy inside me. Just watching wasn’t making me feel productive.

“Let me show you one more time with Alice,” Jasper suggested, with a tone in his voice that felt almost scolding. “Alice will be able to show you some of the evasive tactics that Victoria may use.”

My impatience flared inside of me, but I watched Alice carefully.

Jasper stalked toward where his mate stood.

He sprang, disappearing. Suddenly he was on the other side of Alice. She didn't appear to have moved. 

Jasper wheeled and launched himself at her again, only to land in a crouch behind her like the first time. All the while, Alice stood smiling with her eyes closed. 

She was moving - I'd just been missing it, distracted by Jasper's attacks. She took a small step forward at the exact second that Jasper's body flew through the spot where she'd just been standing. My human eyes could have never followed their movements.

Jasper closed in, and Alice began to move faster. She was dancing—spiraling and twisting and curling in on herself. Jasper was her partner, lunging, reaching through her graceful patterns, never touching her, like every movement was choreographed. Finally, Alice laughed.

Out of nowhere, she was perched on Jasper's back, her lips at his neck.

"Gotcha," she said and kissed his throat.

Jasper chuckled, shaking his head. "You truly are one frightening little monster." 

Alice climbed from his back, while he regrouped. “You see, however, that we can move like the wind; there and gone. Victoria has shown some of these same abilities, and now, you have them too. However, she doesn’t have the advantages that Alice has.”

“My turn,” I said fervently. 

“Batter up,” Edward whispered in my ear. I instinctively crouched, and stalked closer to Jasper, my eyes locked on his.

I closed on Jasper, and this fight was more even than either of the others. Jasper had a century of experience to guide him, but I was slightly faster, my newborn strength helping me to move swiftly. However, the moves Jasper used were unfamiliar to me. He came at me again and again, instinctive snarls erupting constantly. He began to move too fast for me to really understand what he was doing. Before I knew it, I was on my belly on the ground, Jasper's hands around my neck.

“Damn it!” I shouted. 

“Don’t be discouraged. That was very good for your first time.” 

Edward stood on the edge of the clearing, a disconcerted look on his face. Despite my being indestructible, he clearly did not enjoy seeing me engage in hand to hand combat 

I went up against them countless times, switching off between Edward, Alice, and Jasper as adversaries. Edward was taking it too easy on me; I pinned him twice. I never touched Alice, and Jasper was somehow able to catapult me across the clearing anytime I got my hands on him. 

But I was getting better. 

Stronger. 

I could feel it. 

We continued long into the night until songbirds began to sing at the morning’s first light. 

* * *

** JPOV **

The black forest flew around me, the bracken covered ground thudded under my paws as I ran. I was heading north, making a giant circle around Forks and the Rez’. If she was in the area, there was no way I’d miss her. The circle’s diameter grew with every pass. 

I imagined and hoped that I was right, that the pack was enjoying the few hours of sleep they would have before their patrol began again. If someone phased and heard my thoughts, Sam would be on me like white on rice. 

I maintained a ry distance between the edges of my circles and the places I knew the vamps’ would be. Some would be at their nest, den, whatever, and some near Charlie’s house. I didn’t need their input. I was careful to avoid detection. 

I continued my circle for hours, expanding the circumference and retracting, searching for the distinct smell of the redhead. It’d be sickly sweet and almost bleachy like the Cullens, but I had been around them enough to know the difference. When I ran across her trail, I’d know it was her, and I could end this.

I was imagining the different scenarios of how it may play out when I told Bella I had solved the problem; that I had made her father and her friends safe. I imagined her falling into my arms and thanking me. I imagined though it would never again come to pass, her cheeks blushing when I held her close to my chest. I fantasized that she would come home to La Push with me—that we could think of a way to fix this. I knew we could, there’s nothing we couldn’t surmount together. She wouldn’t have to leave; she could stay just as much a secret in La Push as the wolves were. I didn’t have a clear plan, but I knew I could make this work. I just had to make her see. 

Close to dawn’s break, I was yanked harshly from my reverie by a scent. The scent I had been waiting for. My heart thudded under my fur as I skidded to a halt, my nails gouging trenches in the dirt. It wasn’t a trail—she was near. My hackles bristled and my fur stood on end. This was it.

A childish giggle from above startled me. I immediately looked above me into the canopy of tall trees and saw nothing. 

“Aw, do we have a stray puppy wandering alone in the forest this evening?”

I answered with a ferocious growl that seemed to shake the darkened forest around me and reared up to claw at the tree I knew she was in. It shook violently. 

She giggled again in response, still invisible in the branches above.

“Heel, dog.”

I growled at her command.

The swish of the wind around her was audible as she took off through the treetops towards Forks. 


	13. Prosthetics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed chapter! My amazing beta Marie S. Cullen is a superwoman and has her hands full right now. My thoughts and good vibes are with her right now!! 
> 
> Not my characters, Stephenie Meyer, No copyright intended, blah blah. 
> 
> Look me up on fb under Seygen Belial for updates and sneak peeks!! 
> 
> One more chapter after this, and an epilogue. Stay tuned!

**_**Now Playing: Prosthetics by Slipknot**_ **

**JPOV**

I willed my mental voice to travel as far as it could. How close were we to the Cullens? How far away could Edward hear? 

I was right on her tail, but I was not close enough. She was leading me towards town. Another ten minutes and the cover of the forest would give way to the streets and lights of Forks. I was panicking, and in my panic, I was making mistakes. She slipped right from my teeth as soon as I’d close them around her—like smoke, she was there and then gone. 

_Edward! Bloodsucker! Help!_ My thoughts screeched. I began to howl in hopes that my signal would be heard by someone, anyone, even the pack. _Someone wake up and phase!_ The jig was up; I knew I could not do this on my own. She was headed straight for her goal, and I wasn’t stopping her. _My god, I’m not stopping her._ I was failing, and with each ragged snarl and snap of my jaws onto nothing but air, this truth was affirmed. 

The sun was beginning to rise, the black sky brightening to gray, and I could see her clearer now. She skipped between the ground and the treetops, always just out of my grasp. 

I remembered that the psychic couldn’t see me. I knew that if Edward could hear my thoughts, he’d have come. I was alone, and Victoria was gaining ground. And no one had any warning. 

The trees were thinning, and I could smell humans; hear cars on the 101. With horror, I realized that I recognized these woods—We were approaching the back of Charlie Swan’s house, with no one to hear us coming until we were nearly there. I yowled with all my might, hoping that the sentinel of leeches would hear our approach. 

* * *

**EPOV**

The night of training ended, and it was time to trade off with Emmett, Carlisle, and Esme at Charlie Swan’s home. They agreed to run a perimeter around the town before they headed back home, to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. Alice was watching the future thoughtfully. 

“I think we’re okay. I don’t see anything coming. Although, I do have a lot of holes where the wolves are involved…” She trailed off uneasily, visibly bothered by her blind spots. 

I felt disconcerted about it myself. 

But, in the cool fog of the breaking dawn, and all seemed quiet around the Swan residence. I took my place in the trees behind Charlie’s yard, reflecting on the conversation I had with Bella before I left. 

_“Bella, it just isn’t necessary to risk you being that close to humans right now. You’re days old.”_

_“I think I can handle it, Edward, I really do.”_

_“That’s because you haven’t been around a human yet.”_

_“The wolves don’t seem to cause any uncontrollable desires.”_

_“That’s because they smell like wet dog, Bella.”_ I had answered, exasperated. 

Why couldn’t she see that I was only trying to protect her? No one was trying to leave her out. 

_“If it keeps Charlie safe… I’ll take your word for it. I just don’t see myself trying to attack my own father.”_

I had taken a moment to stand in awe of her. Her selflessness had always been one of my most beloved of her characteristics, but it still moved me that though she had been through unspeakable trauma in the past few days, she still had the capacity to worry for others; particularly her father. I could see the unspoken bond that had withstood the fires of her change—the bond between a father and a daughter—alive and well inside her. It was touching. 

She had reluctantly agreed to stay behind. 

In Esme’s thoughts, as we traded out for shifts, I had heard that Charlie had been awake most of the night, quietly crying in his bed. I guessed that he would lay awake in this way for the next several nights. His grief was heavy, I could feel it radiating from his sleeping mind, but I knew that its weight did not touch what he would have felt if we had been forced to report Bella dead. She was just an errant runaway—but still _alive_ to him, still breathing. I prayed that offered him some solace, not only for his sake but for Bella’s. His pain hurt her as well. 

The muted notes of his dreams were melancholy and nostalgic—full of memories of Bella’s childhood, partially shrouded by the wall that kept me from hearing his point of view as clearly as others. I yearned for a way to give Bella back her father, to keep their bond intact. I was at a loss—there was no hiding the change in her, the change that made her voice sound like sweet music, that made her soft skin hard and cold as stone, that changed her eyes to a sinister red. Maybe with time— 

The morning silence was interrupted by a wolf’s howl. 

It isn’t easy to startle a vampire, but that’s what I was—startled. 

_What—What the hell is that?_ Alice and Jasper’s thoughts echoed my own. 

The peaceful morning suddenly exploded with screaming, panicked thoughts, tortured howls, and the thudding of fast footfalls on the forest floor. 

_I can’t catch her! Stop her! I can’t do it, I’m failing, get her!_

Jacob’s thoughts were shrieking at me. In lower mental decibels, I could hear Victoria’s thoughts too. 

_Not this time—I can’t turn back now—Not this time—Too much has been taken. Not this time, not this time._

Her thoughts were like a marching cadence as she ran at breakneck speed straight towards us. 

_What the hell has that mutt done?_ Horror pierced me. All of our planning, our stratagem; all rendered futile now because of this boy. 

Russet brown and fiery red streaked through the forest, straight towards me. Alice’s thoughts raced towards me from around the other side of the house, and Jasper’s from deeper in the forest. Victoria was running right towards me, and I was poised to snatch her. Our eyes were locked. 

Mere feet from my grasp, she leaped nimbly into the trees, and I sprang to follow, reaching for her exposed ankle as she jumped. 

Ten feet into the air, I was tackled by a mass of sweaty brown fur and teeth, a battering ram of growling and snarling. We rolled in a tangled mess across the forest floor, the sound like colliding boulders bouncing between the trees. Before our momentum ended, I kicked Jacob off of me with disgust, sending him flying into the massive trunks that surrounded us. 

She was already back on the ground and sprinting across Charlie’s lawn. 

“Damn DOG!” I roared. 

_This can’t be happening._

_Not this time._

_Always in my way!_

_I didn’t see a thing!_

_Take her down NOW!_

There was a cacophony of thoughts, and but I shut them out and focused on my chase. 

She had too much of a head start. Jacob’s bumbling collision with me had given her the edge. Wood splintered as Victoria ripped Charlie Swan’s back door from its hinges and entered the house, the three of us steps behind her. Streaking through the Swan kitchen, I reached out to snatch her hair as it streamed behind her and closed my hand on nothing but air. I didn’t stop to wonder whether the dog had followed us into the house, and I didn’t stop for the sake of secrecy. 

I heard the surprise in his thoughts as the dissonance awoke the sleeping man upstairs, and watch through Victoria’s eyes as Charlie was wrenched from his bed by his neck. 

She met us halfway up the stairs, milliseconds ahead of us. She held Charlie Swan in front of her, her left hand wrapped around his neck, his back pressed against her chest. His eyes bulged in panic, and his thoughts began to scream, mixing with his audible shouts. Her other hand smashed over his mouth, muffling his screams of protest. His feet kicked wildly and his arms flailed, but he could not fight her. His eye spun wildly in his head, taking in the scene around him. I heard the shock and rage as his eyes took in my visage. 

We were all frozen. The only sounds were that of Jacob and Charlie’s thudding hearts, and Charlie’s muffled cries of protest from behind Victoria’s small, pale hand. 

_Not this time, not this time… I’m the taker this time._

Victoria’s thoughts chanted the mantra over and over. 

Less than three seconds had passed since I heard them coming through the trees. How had this happened? Panic seized me and rooted me to the floor where I stood. 

“Anyone moves, and I’ll tear his fucking throat out.” 

The incongruity of what she said with the sound of her voice was disarming; it was like a small child had spewed such venom. 

_Not this time, not this time._

In her thoughts, I could hear Victoria’s sorrow. 

****Now Playing: Daddy by Korn****

I heard her take stock of everything she felt she had lost. I could not deny that she had suffered tremendous loss in her time, mortal and immortal. I listened as the thoughts of the drunken men who had paid to sleep with her when she was but a child filled her head. I saw the memories of the beatings and rapes; memories of her face being smashed into pillows, welts on her thighs. Memories of starvation, memories of mortal pain. Cloudy, muddied images from her own perspective, of looking down at her thighs covered in blood. 

Names and faces… images of burning bodies. Faces and names of vampire women echoed through her head— _Anne, Mary, Noela._ Motherly, maybe sisterly, familial feelings came attached to these images, always shadowed in crushing loss. 

I felt her soul-shattering grief at James’ loss, and at the loss of the safe-haven she felt that he had given her. Never in her existence had she ever felt safe anywhere else but in his arms. 

No one moved. 

I spoke, cautiously. 

“Victoria—I know you’re hurting.” 

She laughed coldly in response, but I continued. 

“You know I can hear that, you know I can hear what’s inside your head. I can see what you’ve lost. It doesn’t have to be like this.” I used my most persuasive voice, willing it to break through her hysteria. 

“What the hell do you know? You know nothing!” she shrieked and removed her hand from Charlie’s throat to smash her balled fist into the wall next to her. 

Drywall flew in shards, and Charlie cringed in her arms. Victoria spoke softly into his ear. “Oh don’t you worry honey. Didn’t I tell you I’d be back for you?” 

“Victoria, he’s just a human. He doesn’t deserve this.” I pleaded with her. 

She laughed again. “He’s just as vile as the rest of them.” 

An image of Charlie’s bewildered face on the side of the road in the woods filled her thoughts. But she didn’t see bewilderment there; she saw lust, and greed. Another taker, if he had the power. 

Tears spilled out of Charlie’s petrified eyes, and over the dainty looking stone hand covering his mouth. 

Jacob’s growls and snarls could still be heard from outside of the house. 

Alice’s frustration bubbled over. 

“Will you please LEAVE SO I CAN SEE?!” she shrieked to Jacob, knowing he would hear. She clutched the sides of her head with her eyes mashed shut. Jacob’s teeth snapped in response, and I could hear, he didn’t plan on going anywhere. 

_No way. And more are coming._

Rage at his insolence, at his stubbornness that could potentially kill this man in front of me. _Nuisance, unnecessary, unneeded, idiot mongrel!_

Alice was as good as blind. 

“Be GONE DOG!” I bellowed towards the ruined back door. I heard the stutter in his thoughts, as he took several four-legged paces back. His thoughts again steeled, and he stood his ground. 

There were more thoughts in his head now, thoughts that didn’t belong to him. The rest of the pack was charging through the forest towards the Swan home. 

Victoria continued as though no one had spoken. 

“I’m not running anymore, Cullen.” Parts of her consciousness fought against these words, her instincts begging her to flee. Her fingers twitched. “Where’s the girl?” 

_Not this time, not this time. It’s my turn to take. It’s my turn to fuck them._

“Victoria, she’s been changed—YOU changed her when you bit her,” I responded. 

Charlie’s eyes wheeled, his mental hue confused, horrified. 

Victoria was unphased. She had complete apathy towards the state of Bella’s being, other than wanting to extinguish it entirely. 

“I don’t CARE! Bring her here, NOW!” Victoria shrieked louder. _I’ll have her head._

“The wolves are on their way too, Victoria. How do you plan to get out of here?” I asked her, struggling to keep my voice low and even, smooth and persuasive. I hoped to capitalize on her urgency to escape. Every muscle in her body was screaming to make a run for it. 

I could see several rough plots of the area float through her head. She didn’t have a clearly defined escape plan for the first time in her existence. Her mind filled with panic. Her crutch was always escaping and evasion. She was completely unequipped for this assault she had launched, and she was painfully aware. A sob escaped her lips and her face contorted with a mixture of despair and rage. 

If the thought of Bella’s head hanging by her hair from Victoria’s fist hadn’t been just as prominent in her head as the panic, I may have pitied her. 

I couldn’t ignore the onslaught of the thoughts of Alice and Jasper beside me. 

Jasper was thinking of outcomes. _Do we bring Bella here, in hopes she’ll release Charlie? Do we use Bella as bait for this, or would she charge her own father, the second she smelled his blood?_

Jasper’s thoughts were not only more future-oriented but more strategic than mine as well—he was banking that Victoria’s urge to run would grant us a weak point, to safely remove the struggling human man from her steel clutches. 

He felt her panic, but he didn’t know that she was dead set on her prize. Only I could hear that. She wanted Bella, more specifically, her head, but she no longer saw Bella as an evening of the score; she saw Bella as a symbol of all that she had lost, and all who had harmed her over the past five centuries. She was no longer willing to run from that which personified everything she had lost; no longer willing to add to the undue debts she had paid. 

_And if he lives, Edward? What are we to tell him of all of this? What then, when we do win?_

“Can we cross this bridge first please?” I spat back at Jasper’s mental interjection. 

Alice’s thoughts didn’t hold concern about Bella’s safety, not for lack of care, but because she now saw Bella as indestructible as the rest of us. She didn’t see Bella as fragile anymore, and why would she? Alice’s existence wasn’t inextricably intertwined with Bella’s. 

_Edward, let me go get her. When I’m away from the dog, I’ll be able to see._ Alice’s thoughts were also less panicked, more organized than mine. She was calculating. 

“Are you insane?” I hissed. 

_Maybe I’ll be able to see a way… a way to save Charlie._

I sped through possibilities in my head, my primary concern removing Charlie Swan from Victoria’s grasp without having to put my Bella in danger. 

But the second I moved she would kill him. I could see her plan in her thoughts, Alice was right. She’d rip him open if I moved towards her, and Alice’s thoughts were of no help, blinded as she was by the circling wolf in the yard. If she could just see, we might be able to find a way… but the future was blank, and fading further as the pack approached. 

I could see no other options. Alice saw my answer in my pained expression. 

Charlie’s heart sped faster, dangerously so. His chest was heaving with shallow breaths, coming too fast. I hoped he would lose consciousness. How to explain the iron arms of the small girl that held him captive? What would we tell him now? Even if we won, it was death or immortality for Charlie Swan. 

_Don’t bring Bella here, NO!_

This was perhaps the clearest thought I had ever heard emanate from the mind of Bella’s father. 

Alice exited the room silently, the only sounds remaining were the thudding hearts of Charlie and the stalking nuisance beyond the walls. 

* * *

Seconds that moved like eons passed in silence after Alice’s departure. The sounds of Charlie’s struggles ebbed and flowed; his muffled cries gained a begging tone. He was praying, begging whatever god that would listen to get him out of this. It was torturous to hear, like watching a suffering animal. 

“What do you demand to let the man go unharmed?” I implored, Charlie’s desperation fueling mine. 

She answered without hesitation. 

“Her. Alone.” 

There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she would kill Bella if given an opportunity. 

“You’re awfully confident. What makes you so sure you could beat her?” 

I was surprised to hear her confidence waiver. 

“I’ll die trying.” 

“You very well may, Victoria. The wolves have the entire block surrounded, and the rest of our family is returning. Is your life really worth this?” Jasper replied to her statement. His warlike appearance fully registered in her eyes for the first time, and a wave of dominance radiated from Jasper, making him seem somehow fiercer, battle-ready. 

She shivered but held on to the hope she could escape. 

Charlie began to struggle harder again, clawing at her hands where they held his face and neck. She kissed his cheek softly and hushed him. 

“What’s the matter Chief Swan?” she whispered into his ear, shifting her gaze from my eyes to Jasper’s and back again. “I thought you wanted me? I thought you liked me, Charlie?” She purred into his ear, crushing his back harder into her stone chest by his throat. His eyes looked off into the distance, focused on nothing. In his mind he was seeing the roadside in the woods again, Victoria bending over an old car seductively. Regret and shame colored his mind. Charlie felt bad for having lusted for her. 

Self-flagellation must run in this family. 

The hearts and breaths of the wolves were audible now, as they formed a border in the woods all around the house, surrounding the perimeter, poised and ready. 

_Just get him out of her hands._ _We’ll handle her when she runs._ Sam Uley thought towards me. _The rest of your family are approaching. The ones further back can hear them._

A new wave of panic thrilled down my spine at Bella’s approach. She must be terrified. 

“She’s almost here Victoria. Maybe you can hear them coming? Can you let him go now? Bella’s almost here.” Jasper stiffened at my side at this revelation. 

Her angry eyes answered the question without words, and she took one step down the staircase. 

“Back the fuck up.” She ordered, moving her foot to the next stair down, slowly, pushing Charlie awkwardly in front of her, supporting his full weight by his neck. His feet stumbled over the stair, trying to gain footing. 

Jasper poised to spring. Another wave of ferocity rolled off of him. He seemed a formidable monster and a strange urge to run from him overtook me for a second. 

Jasper was amazing. 

I could hear the fear in Victoria’s mind, but it to my chagrin it did not stop her. Her very soul screamed to run. 

“I said back the FUCK UP!” Her voice was choked, her eyes wild. 

She sunk her fingers minutely into Charlie’s jaw, and I heard his teeth break. His muffled screams nauseated me. “I swear, I will rip his fucking jaw off!” 

White-hot pain filled the man’s consciousness. 

We backed away as she descended the stairs into the yellow and wood-paneled kitchen. 

_Stop her! Wait!_

The wolves attempted to block Bella from crossing the lightning back yard. 

She broke through their barrier effortlessly and a run, with my family traveling behind her making no effort to stop her. 

Everyone had come; even Rosalie. I felt a faint jab of gratitude towards my younger sister. 

“Victoria, you are ridiculously surrounded. Let the man go so you can live.” Jasper leveled with her. “There’s no way you can get to Bella and then get away from us. You attack her, and we’ll attack you. Just let him go… We’ll let you leave.” 

If I couldn’t hear the subterfuge in Jasper’s thoughts, I’d have been alarmed. There wasn’t a chance in hell that I would let this woman live. 

_Not this time. Not this time._ She was unrelenting. 

Soft and swift footfalls announced her approach as Bella rounded the corner into the kitchen and like a flash stood between Victoria and I. Charlie’s moans once again turned to muffled screams, and his thoughts were insane with fear; not for his life, but for his daughters. 

_Run Bella, run!_

As Victoria and Bella’s eyes met, something in her fiery colored head snapped. I could almost hear it, like a rubber band stretched too tight. Like a spring stressed too far. 

Bella didn’t breathe. 

“Victoria, I—” Bella began. 

But Victoria wasn’t stopping to listen. Wide-eyed, and her thoughts scattered and insane, Victoria sunk her fingers into Charlie’s chest as though it were made of clay. Blood burst forth from the wounds and through the fingers she still held over his broken mouth, choking out his screams. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. 

Bella didn’t scream. Her mouth fell open as though she would, but no sound came out. Again, as they had in the previous days, her hands balled into tight fists around her hair, and she fell to her knees onto the linoleum floor. Cracks sprang out on the floor where her knees hit. 

I heard the joy in Victoria’s thoughts at Bella’s display. She was hurting Bella, and that’s all she had wanted. 

Snapping, twisting and crunching, Victoria’s hand clenched Charlie’s beating heart. I heard it stutter to a halt when the veins and arteries snapped as she pulled the muscle from his chest, still pressing his standing body to hers. 

She held it in front of her in her small white palm, still pulsating. Charlie’s wild eyes rolled down and stared first at it, and then down to Bella, on her knees before him and his captor. 

Charlie Swan’s thoughts dimmed, sputtered, and faded to black; extinguishing as completely as a snuffed-out candle. His body went limp in her hands. 

The smell of the blood seemed to snap Victoria from her rage, and she eyed the organ she held in her hand. A cruel smile spread across her face. 

_Now, I’m the taker._

She leaned forward, across Charlie’s shoulder, and sniffed once at the gaping wound in his chest cavity, his blood splattering on the floor like an overflowing sink. 

She met Bella’s eyes again and shrugged. 

“Eh... I’ve had better.” Her voice was cruel. 

She squeezed Charlie’s heart in her fist like putty, and let his body drop. With a flick of her wrist, she flung the organ against the refrigerator door. Blood splattered across Bella’s shocked, alabaster face. 

And then, Victoria was gone. 

Jasper and I stood frozen in horror, and Bella began to scream. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was rough, huh? One more chapter and an epilogue! Stay tuned!


	14. Where No Circles Confine

**_ Now Playing—The Waters of Ain by Watain _ **

** EPOV **

Jasper did not remain frozen for long, and in the same second that the blood started to flow,  he  vanished.

Bella scrambled on her knees across the floor to Charlie’s side where he lay. 

Her sobs were muffled as she buried her face into  Charlie’s neck. I heard the snap of sinew and tissue as her teeth  sank through.

_ Oh, Bella honey, no… don’t drink dead blood Bella baby…  _

But she wasn’t; she pulled her face back from his still-warm neck, his cooling blood dribbling down her chin, and examined his face, searching desperately for a sign of life.  _ She wasn’t feeding.  _ I was dumbfounded. Newborn though she was, she found the strength to pull her teeth out of still warm and bleeding flesh. But Charlie’s wounds were not pulsing with the flow of an injury inflicted upon a person with a still-beating heart. It was weak; trickling. 

She cried out as she stared into his face, his eyes open but unfocused,  fixed on the ceiling. With  another desperate cry, she  sa nk her teeth into his  cooling flesh again, near his  collarbone.

Nothing changed in Charlie.  There was no beating heart to pump the venom through his body… his heart was crushed on the floor in  front of the refrigerator.  His body gave no response. 

“Bella… Bella baby, his heart…” I began.

“NO!” She shrieked at me. 

Still on hands and knees, she scrambled to the other side of the kitchen, snatched the pile of bloody tissue that was the heart of Charlie Swan off of the floor, and stuffed it into the massive cavity Victoria’s fingers had left in his chest. I cringed as it squished uselessly into the orifice, and reached my hands out to her helplessly. 

She turned to me and let out a feral scream, reminiscent of the mountain lions that we had hunted just yesterday. Her mouth and hands were covered in her father’s blood and her eyes blazed, insane. With grief? Thirst? I had never seen her look at me this way. 

She plunged her teeth into  Charlie’s lifeless body again and again. His wrists, his thighs, neck  and  ankles. Between bites, she slapped his  paling face . She didn’t seem to hear his cheekbones crack under her blows. 

“Dad, snap out of it!  DAD! Can’t you feel the fire?” She turned  to me in desperation . “Why won’t you help me?” she screamed at me .  “Why isn’t it working!?”

“Bella baby, I… I think it’s too late baby, I—” 

But I didn’t think. I knew. 

“NO! ”

She sunk her teeth into his neck again. I reached towards her once more, hoping that my touch could snap her out of this craze. She slapped my hand away from her and growled hellishly.

I could smell the coagulation of his blood, it’s decomposition. It began so quickly. Surely, she could smell this too, taste it when she bit. I sank to my knees next to her as she continued biting Charlie, over and over again, between pounds on his chest. I heard his sternum crack under her fists. I hardly noticed that Carlisle now stood in the kitchen behind us , his mind shocked into silent horror. 

He took a cautious step towards us. 

_ Edward, we have to get her off of him. She’s tearing him to shreds.  _

Carlisle knelt on her other side, and we both moved t o remove her hands from Charlie’s body. 

I was shocked into motionlessness as Bella shrieked .  Carlisle paused at my sudden stillness. 

_ DADDY! _ _ Daddy please! Come back! _

But she hadn’t shrieked. She hadn’t spoken at all. She was still curled over Charlie’s body, clutching his corpse, her body shaking with dry sobs. 

_ Daddy, no, please don’t leave me! _

And then I was drowning, drowning again like I had that first night in her bedroom, that first night I had heard my name from her lips while she slept. But this time, though its source was the same—Bella’s unfiltered thoughts—it was in a sea of wretched sorrow and pain that I foundered. 

Scenes of a small Bella, from her perspective, being pushed on a tire swing that had once hung from a fir in the backyard filled my head. Memories of beach days on a sunny California shore. The scent of Old Spice aftershave and gun powder, beer on a man’s breath, and the prickle of whiskers as Charlie kissed her cheek. Warm, masculine arms surrounding her. The smell of his leather coat.  Snow chains on the tires of her truck. _ I want you to be happy here, Bells.  _ Bedtimes, where a s a fearful child, Bella peered around her father’s shoulder towards a dark closet. Charlie assuring her that no monster could ever get her while he was there. 

Something had dropped inside of Bella, something had fallen, and for the first time, I could hear her mind. Whatever subconscious shield that blocked her thoughts from me and the rest of the world collapsed; it was as if she had forgotten to hold it up  for this moment. The shock of this realization coupled with Bella’s grief threatened to crush me.

Shock did not stop the terrible irony though , the irony of how abysmally wrong Charlie had been; wrong that no monsters could get to her while he was there. How intensely I wished he had been right. What had these people done to deserve what I had brought them? 

The weight, the black oppressive mass of her sadness tugged a choked sob from my throat. I felt the jagged mourning of a daughter for her father, and I wept  for them  with dry eyes at her side. 

A sound like screeching metal echoed from the  forest’s edge, maybe a hundred yards into the cover of the trees . I cringed and scanned the area for aware human minds. I heard none .

The noise must have reminded her mind to hold on to her shield, because like before, Bella’s mind was once again silent. __

_ A shield. That _ _ ’s _ _ it.  _

That’s what protected her mind from me, from the rest of the world… 

Bella had a gift. 

I sat on my knees at her side, mouth agape.  Carlisle stared between Bella and I, questions in his expression. __

_ I got her! I got her! _ _ We got her!  _

Jacob’s exalted thoughts were loud and clear from the forest’s edge , interrupting my reverie. He was celebrating his victory, unaware of the dead man on the floor of the yellow kitchen.  The pack circled his snarling form as he ripped and tore at Victoria’s slight body, and chunks of fire-colored hair  flew . 

Victoria’s thoughts were unfocused, trance-like, as Jacob’s paw smashed her face into the forest floor. She retreated into a place in her mind, a place I could see that she had reserved for herself only. A place she kept for the times when the men she that had bought and sold her used her body. For times when the blows had rained down before she could escape. Complete silence, and acceptance. No struggling— _ Just let them have their way. It only makes it worse to struggle.  _ She went into that place, the place that I had heard in the thoughts of so many mortal women. Women who had been raped and abused, but didn’t fight. “Why didn’t you fight?” authorities would ask of these women. They’d remember the lack of struggle, and feel at fault; that they let it happen, but they hadn’t. It was a mental shut down, an escape. Retreat in the only way they could. The only port in the storm. 

And then, as Jacob’s teeth removed her head from her shoulders, her mind was gone .  Like Charlie’s a few moments ago, and then again Bella’s, it simply went silent.

Jasper and Alice worked to gather her pieces, and I could see thoughts of fire in their heads. Rosalie, Emmett, and Esme gathered tinder.  They moved swiftly, allowing no time for thought. None of us enjoyed the tasks we performed this morning. 

Carlisle and I moved simultaneously, as if both responding to some silent cue,  to pry Bella’s fingers from Charlie’s arms . She still didn’t know her strength—more bones  crushed under her grip. 

We all but carried her sobbing form out of the shattered backdoor, as the morning sun broke the top of the tree line and her father’s blood dripped from her sodden shirt. 

Not twenty minutes had passed. 

**_ **Now Playing—You Know You’re Right by Nirvana** _ **

Jacob bounded from the forest line as we stepped out of the backdoor in his human form, his thoughts triumphant.

“Bella! Bella! We got her!”

I saw in Jacob’s mind what he was expecting. He expected an elated Bella to rush into his arms, to thank him in joyous sobs. He even imagined tears that would never come. I saw his hope, his dream that she would run to him. That she would turn from me.

Bella stopped short and stared at Jacob with an unfathomable expression on her face. Faster than our fingers could curl around her arms to stop her, Bella charged Jacob. Her hands impacted his chest and sent him flying backward through the air. His body left a large crater where he impacted the ground, fifteen feet back from where he had just stood. Jacob was stunned as he recovered from the blow.

_ What? Why is she so mad? _

“ _ What did you do Jacob!?”  _ Bella screamed at him shrilly, demanding an explanation. _ “What did you DO!?” _

Her voice carried through the trees, and I feared neighbors would hear. 

“Bella, the neigh— “ 

“I don’t  _ care!”  _ She  screamed, eyes still pinned on Jacob . Oh, how I wished I could stop her agony.

“Jacob...Charlie...Victoria killed him.” I heard Carlisle deliver the news, but it was like a dream. Surreal. Bella flinched and a sob tore from her throat.

I  heard the gravity of the situation hit Jacob’s psyche like a wrecking ball as he looked back and forth between the three of us.

“What? How? You let her get him? Save him! Bite him, are you stupid?” Jacob yelled, still on the ground. I growled in response to his insult. 

“There are some things that even venom can’t heal...” Carlisle explained. He tried to block out the image of Bella smashing Charlie’s mangled heart back into his chest.

Jacob’s mouth hung open and his eyes wandered unfocused, looking into the forest. 

Bella  advanced on Jacob,  who still laid in the dewy grass, raised up on his elbows, and I did not move to stop her. His thoughts were incoherent, dazed.

“We had it under  _ control!”  _ she bellowed at him. He cringed at her rage as she approached. “We were  _ planning! Why didn’t you wait? WHY DIDN’T YOU WAIT?” _

I heard the alarmed thoughts of an early-rising neighbor as they heard her shouts. I was thankful the trees would block the curious mind’s view of the Swan’s backyard.

“Bella… People can hear...” I warned.

But she continued to stalk towards Jacob, as though she wished to kick him while he laid at her feet. I wouldn’t have blamed her. 

His face steeled, and I heard the resolve in his mind. 

“Don’t you dare…” I warned him, hearing the thoughts  solidify . “Don’t do it Jacob. Don’t say it. You’re wrong.”

“No!” he retorted, spitting the words like venom. He turned his dagger-like gaze towards Bella. “Why didn’t  _ you  _ wait, Bella?” She stopped short in her advance, surprise reorganizing her features. Jacob jumped to his feet and stood in front of her, towering over her, looking down into her face, his entire body quivering. 

“None of this,  _ none  _ of it,” He eyes cut again towards me, and then back to hers. “Would’ve happened if you wouldn’t have jumped off that FUCKING cliff! If you had just  _ waited!  _ If you had just  _ stayed with me!”  _ He screamed his words into her face through tears. He wept, openly and unabashed. 

“If you had just... stayed with me...” he repeated in a whisper and covered his face with his hands. 

Bella’s face went blank, and she did not respond. I walked swiftly to where she stood and pulled her into my arms, away from the vibrating werewolf. She moved automatically; her expression distant like I wasn’t there. 

I could’ve killed Jacob where he stood, but there had been enough loss of life for today. 

We turned from him, and I guided Bella towards the forest’s edge. Seeing that we were safe, Carlise turned back to take care of Charlie’s body, leaving Jacob by himself on the lawn.

“He’s wrong Bella.” I whispered softly into her hair. Charlie’s blood was drying into a crust in her brown locks.

“Is he though?” she breathed, still lost in her daze.

Far away in the forest, purple-tinged smoke rose into the morning sky. 


	15. Epilogue

**_ Forks Forum _ **

**_ March 2 _ ** **_ 3 _ ** **_ rd _ ** **_ , 2006 _ **

**_ Human  _ ** **_ Remains Found in State Park Confirmed to  _ **

**_ Belong to Forks Chief of Police and Daughter _ **

_ Human remains _ _ discovered  _ _ Monday afternoon _ _ i _ _ n the wooded area near  _ _ Undi _ _ Road along the banks of the  _ _ Bogachiel _ _ River in  _ _ Bogachiel _ _ State Park have been confirmed _ _ by the Clallam County Coroner’s Office _ _ to be th _ _ ose _ _ of missing Chief of Police Charles Swan _ _ and his daughter Isabella _ _ , says the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office. _

_ Dr. Carlisle Cullen, acting Chief Medical Examiner, identified the remains late Tuesday afternoon as  _ _ those of the  _ _ Swan _ _ s _ _ ,  _ _ both of which  _ _ had been reported missing when  _ _ the police chief  _ _ did not report to the station on Monday morning. _

_ Early investigations seem to point to _ __ _ animal activity _ _ —noting previously reported heightening of wolf  _ _ attacks and sightings _ _ in the area. _

_ The human remains _ _ were initially found by backpackers on _ _ Monday _ _ afternoon, _ _ across the  _ _ river _ _ from an unoccupied tent at a campsite in  _ _ the park _ _ , and the backpackers reported their discovery to local authorities, according to a news release from  _ _ Bogachiel _ _ State Park. The campsite will remain closed until further notice, park officials added. _

_ Clallam County Sheriff’s Office spoke with Fork _ _ s _ _ Forum on Tuesday and released the statement, “Chief Swan’s service an _ _ d dedication to his community were _ _ never questioned. He loved being the Forks Police Chief.  _ _ Charlie and Isabella _ _ w _ _ ill be missed by so many that they have _ _ affected. _ _ Our department and community stand with the Swan family during this difficult time. _ _ ” _

_ Joint  _ _ Memorial Service arrangements _ _ are to be announced later this week. A candlelight vigil in memory of Charles and Isabella will be held Wednesday night at the Forks Assembly of God. _

**_ **Now Playing— _ ** **_ No Dreams Breed in Breathless Sleep by Dissection _ ** **_ **  _ **

**_ EPOV _ **

The services took place on Saturday evening, just before the shade of twilight set over the cemetery. The evening sun still filtered through the trees, casting long shadows over the ceremony.

We chose a place to hide far enough away that the smell of humans wouldn’t be strong enough to spurn Bella’s thirst. She didn’t need to burn on top of what today brought. 

We watched, her head laid on my shoulder, as Charlie Swan’s last ride came to an end in Forks Cemetery, and the combined graveside service commenced. Hundreds atten ded the funeral of Charles and Isab ella Swan. An urn , supposedly containing  m y Bella’s ashes, sat on a table at the front of the service, surrounded by smiling pictures and funeral flowers .

_ I just couldn’t do it _ _ ; _ Renee had told Esme.  _ I just couldn’t put my baby girl in the cold ground. _

We were all grateful that Carlisle  had been able to take the role of a medical examiner for this case; the lack of physical evidence of Bella’s death would have otherwise presented problematic questions. 

Only my family, and those attending from the Quileute pack, knew that the urn contained nothing more than fine sand.

Jacob was not in attendance , and the  wolves seemed to block him from their thoughts.

Uniformed members of Charlie’s department held Renee under her elbows, helping her to her chair. Her body shook with grief, but her mouth remained shut tight, her lips forming the same hard line that Bella’s did when she was concentrating especially hard.

“Oh Mom…” Bella choked, not even trying to stifle her sobs. “I wish…” she trailed off, her statement left  unfinished. 

“I know Bella… I  know .” She didn’t have to complete the thought. The knowledge of everything I had done to cause this scene in her life was nearly smothering. I took a deep breath to combat its weight. 

In the crowd, we saw almost everyone that we had known from school. Most were in black, and  many of them were holding each other and crying. 

“It surprises me, that they came,” Bella said thoughtfully, her voice hushed. “I didn’t know any of them very well.” 

Members of Charlie’s police force spoke of his bravery, his sacrifice. Angela Weber spoke beautifully of Bella’s kindness. Billy Black delivered a tearful eulogy, full of memories he had shared with his best friend. 

One group of people stood out from the crowd—Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Rose, and Emmett—all in light gray. They held themselves straighter than anyone else, and even from a distance, their skin was obviously different. 

Esme hovered near Renee. She was apologizing for my absence, explaining that I’d been too distraught to come. This allowed me to be with Bella so that she didn’t have to watch her and her father’s funeral  alone. 

The constant, legato music of bagpipes began and was carried on the breeze to our perch in the towering red cedar. It played  _ Amazing Grace _ , and those in attendance wept. 

The Color Guard removed the US Flag from Charlie’s casket as it lowered into the Earth, and began the ceremonial folding. The hallowed token was presented to Bella’s mother, the closest thing to next of kin that Charlie Swan had remaining in this world. 

I buried my face in Bella’s mahogany hair. “I’m so sorry Bella. I never wanted this for you.” 

“ This isn’t your fault, Edward . ” She replied, still trying to comfort anyone but herself.

“ The blame is not on you , love.”  I responded.

She simply nodded , and I was  unconvinced . How many decades would it take me to shake Jacob’s accusation from her mind?

The thoughts of the mourners were mostly the same , as they began departing the cemetery; thoughts of their own mortality, mostly. Save for one… 

Renee’s were different. 

As the pallbearers handed her the folded flag, her thoughts  were toned  with  more than  sorrow.

_ I’ll give this to the baby, one day.  _

I watched as the weeping woman’s hands moved to cradled the small, nearly unnoticeable bump in her abdomen. I gasped. 

“Bella…” I breathed. Hope. There was hope here. 

“Bella… Renee…” I broke off, listening intently to the woman’s thoughts. “Renee is expecting.” 

Bella ’s breath caught in her throat, and her hand flew up to cover her mouth. 

I scanned Phil’s mind, sitting to the left of Renee, for any thoughts of his impending fath erhood. There was nothing there except anguish. 

“No one knows yet… Not even Phil.”

Bella’s eyes gazed wide and amazed at her mother.

“She’s going to be okay then...” she w hispered breathlessly. “Wow... I’ll be a big sister...”

I could see the realization on her face, that she would never hold the baby that grew in Renee’s womb, as it washed over her.

“It’s okay though,” she choked. “ Mom can start over.”

“That child will have everything it could ever need or want, Bella.” I breathed, barely audible. 

Bella was unaware of the massive  sums that would soon be delivered to Renee, under the guise of life insurance policies , double indemnity, and supposed accidental death clauses. 

“Good...” she sighed, for once not questioning my expenditure. I hoped this offered her some semblance of comfort. 

The shadows grew as the sun sank, and the cemetery cleared. The only people remaining were the ones charged with filling Charlie’s grave. We set quietly, watching them as the sun dipped further below the trees. Bella’s dry sobs had quelled, and I kissed the places on Bella’s cheeks that sparkled in the  light's last rays.

Eternity stretched out in front of us now, vast and unknown. It wasn’t perfect yet; still suspended in the dusk that my blunders had created . 

“It’s been a long day. A hard one. But I want you to know that you’re extraordinary, and I love you.” I spoke softly, not wanting to disturb this one moment of peace.

She pulled me tight against her. “I can handle anything as long as you’re with me.”

I wrapped my arms around her body. “Then here I will stay. ” I laid a soft kiss on her lips. “ Forever.”

“Forever.” she agreed.


End file.
